{"id":77864,"date":"2014-12-28T20:26:50","date_gmt":"2014-12-28T20:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=77864"},"modified":"2014-12-28T20:26:50","modified_gmt":"2014-12-28T20:26:50","slug":"airasia-devastated-missing-indonesia-jet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=77864","title":{"rendered":"AirAsia ‘devastated’ by missing Indonesia jet"},"content":{"rendered":"

AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes says he is “devastated” that a plane carrying 162 people from Indonesia to Singapore has gone missing.<\/p>\n

AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501, an Airbus A320-200, disappeared over the Java Sea an hour into its flight at 06:24 local time (23:24 GMT Saturday).<\/p>\n

Bad weather was reported in the area but no distress call was made and no wreckage has been sighted.<\/p>\n

The search operation was halted for the night and resumes at about 23:00 GMT.<\/p>\n

The plane had left Surabaya in eastern Java at 05:35 local time (22:35 GMT Saturday) and was due to arrive in Singapore at 08:30 (00:30 GMT).<\/p>\n

Shocked relatives gathered at both airports, in Singapore and Surabaya, poring over the passenger manifests.<\/p>\n

‘My worst nightmare’<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr Fernandes, AirAsia’s chief executive, flew to Surabaya and later told a press briefing: “We are very devastated by what’s happened, it’s unbelievable.<\/p>\n

“Our concern right now is for the relatives and for the next of kin – there is nothing more important to us, for our crew’s family, and for the passengers’ families.<\/p>\n

“We hope that the aircraft is found quickly, and we can find out the cause of what has happened.”<\/p>\n

An air and sea search was immediately launched, with vessels and aircraft from Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia scouring an area near Belitung island, but nothing was found before nightfall.<\/p>\n

The Indonesian search and rescue force will resume at dawn with 12 ships, three helicopters and five aircraft. There will also be two C-130 planes – one each from Malaysia and Singapore – and three ships from those nations.<\/p>\n

Dense storm clouds were reported in the area at the time the plane lost contact.<\/p>\n

The pilot had asked permission to climb to 38,000ft (11,000m) to avoid the clouds.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Airbus, pictured here on an earlier flight, disappeared about an hour after takeoff<\/strong><\/div>\n
\"RelativeRelatives await news in Surabaya, Indonesia<\/strong><\/div>\n
\"AA couple head to a cordoned off area at Changi airport in Singapore<\/strong><\/div>\n

But Indonesian transport ministry official Djoko Murjatmodjo said the request “could not be approved at that time due to traffic, there was a flight above, and five minutes later [flight QZ8501] disappeared from radar”.<\/p>\n

Geoffrey Thomas, of airlineratings.com, told the BBC that radar plots had shown the plane was flying at 353 knots, 100 knots slower than it should have been.<\/p>\n

Although he stressed it was only speculation, he said it was possible the pilots may have lost data on air speed because of an ice-up of pitot tube instrumentation. This was thought to have had happened in the loss of the Air France Airbus A330 over the Atlantic Ocean in 2009.<\/p>\n

A recent safety study showed only 10% of fatal incidents occurred at cruising altitude.<\/p>\n

The AirAsia group has previously had no fatal accidents involving its aircraft.<\/p>\n

Mr Fernandes, who has owned AirAsia since 2001 and turned it into a highly successful operation, tweeted: “This is my worst nightmare.”<\/p>\n

Difficult year<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The AirAsia Indonesia plane in question was delivered in 2008, has flown 13,600 times, covering 23,000 hours, and underwent its last maintenance on 16 November.<\/p>\n

The captain had more than 20,500 flight hours, almost 7,000 of them with AirAsia, Mr Fernandes said.<\/p>\n

AirAsia has set up an emergency line for family or friends of those who may be on board. The number is +622 129 850 801.<\/p>\n

Special centres were set up at both Singapore’s Changi airport and the Juanda international airport in Surabaya.<\/p>\n

AirAsia Indonesia CEO Sunu Widyatmoko said the company had “mobilised a support team to help take care of [relatives’] immediate needs, including accommodation and travel arrangements”.<\/p>\n

There were 155 passengers on board, the company said in a statement:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • 137 adults, 17 children and one infant<\/li>\n
  • Most were Indonesian but several were from other countries: one UK national, a Malaysian, a Singaporean and three South Koreans<\/li>\n
  • The BBC understands that the British national is Chi-Man Choi<\/li>\n
  • Two pilots and five crew were also on board – one French, the others Indonesian<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    This has been a difficult year for aviation in Asia: Malaysia’s national carrier Malaysia Airlines has suffered two losses – flights MH370 and MH17.<\/p>\n

    Flight MH370 disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March with 239 passengers and crew. The wreckage, thought to be in southern Indian Ocean, has still not been located.<\/p>\n

    MH17 was shot down over Ukraine in July, killing all 298 on board.<\/p>\n

    –<\/p>\n

    Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes says he is “devastated” that a plane carrying 162 people from Indonesia to Singapore has gone missing. AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501, an Airbus A320-200, disappeared over the Java Sea an hour into its flight at 06:24 local time (23:24 GMT Saturday). Bad weather was reported in the area but no distress […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":77768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-77864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/77768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}