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
![\"The](\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/79956000\/jpg\/_79956714_79956712.jpg\")
The Airbus, pictured here on an earlier flight, disappeared about an hour after takeoff<\/strong><\/div>\n![\"Relative](\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/79961000\/jpg\/_79961824_rwurpgw0.jpg\")
Relatives await news in Surabaya, Indonesia<\/strong><\/div>\n![\"A](\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/79961000\/jpg\/_79961883_44cjcvop.jpg\")
A couple head to a cordoned off area at Changi airport in Singapore<\/strong><\/div>\nBut 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 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":[],"categories":[],"tags":[14],"yoast_head":"\n\n