The search for AirAsia Flight QZ8501 resumed Monday, a day after it disappeared within Indonesia's airspace. According to rescue officials, the aircraft is likely to be at the bottom of the sea.
Indonesia search and rescue chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said to the media, as quoted by the Associated Press, "Based on the coordinates that we know, the evaluation would be that any estimated crash position is in the sea, and that the hypothesis is the plane is at the bottom of the sea."
Sunday presented bad weather, and it is theorized that it could have contributed to the disappearance of the plane. During their last communication with air traffic control, the pilot was reportedly asking to go higher, from an altitude of 32 thousand feet to 38 thousand feet, as the airspace was dense with storm clouds. However, air traffic control couldn't immediately allow the plane to increase altitude because of another aircraft. Sunardi, a forecaster at Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency, said that clouds were detected all the way up to 44 thousand feet.
However, AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes does not want to jump to conclusions, saying, "We don't want to speculate whether weather was a factor. We really don't know."
He added that proper investigation would be conducted when the aircraft is found.
AirAsia, according to Associated Press, has a very good track record, and it has never lost a plane nor a life since it was founded in 2001. The pilot, Captain Iriyanto, has logged in a total of 20,537 flying hours, including 6,100 with AirAsia Indonesia; and the co-pilot, First Officer Rémi Emmanuel Plesel, has 2,275 flying hours with AirAsia Indonesia. The plane underwent its scheduled maintenance only on Nov. 16.
The commercial jet, flying from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore, has 155 passengers, including 17 children and one infant. In addition, it has seven crew members, namely the pilot, the co-pilot, an engineer, and four flight attendants. Of those onboard, three are from South Korea, one each from France, Malaysia, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, and the rest are all from Indonesia.
According to First Adm. Sigit Setiayana, the Naval Aviation Center commander at the Surabaya air force base, there are currently 12 navy ships, five planes, and three helicopters along with warships helping with the search. Singapore and Malaysia sent ships and planes, and the Australian Air Force also sent a search plane. Fishermen are also said to have joined in to help.
The aircraft was last seen on radar at 23:17 GMT Saturday, a few minutes after its last contact with air traffic control, 42 minutes after it took off from Juandra International Airport.
