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The head of the search for the missing AirAsia flight 8501 said there is little doubt the plane met a grim end. But there is hope that the plane will eventually be found, unlike Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 which remains missing after 9 months. VPC
Family members of passengers onboard the missing Malaysian air carrier AirAsia flight QZ8501 attend a briefing at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya on Monday.(Photo: Manan Vatsyayana, AFP/Getty Images)
SURABAYA, Indonesia — Oily spots and objects spotted in the sea by air crews searching for the AirAsia jet that vanished with 162 people aboard have been ruled out as being connected to the crash, an official said.
The fate of Flight 8501 remained a mystery the day after the aircraft vanished. The second day of the air search was suspended for the night on Monday evening.
At a press briefing at Surabaya's Juanda International Airport on Monday, officials held out hope for survivors but said they were preparing for the worst.
Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla said that the search operation, which involves 30 ships and 50 aircraft, could still be characterized as a rescue mission.
"There is no time limit on the operation," he said. "Of course we hope there will be survivors and pray for that. But we realize that the worst may have happened."
Late on Monday, Trikora Harjo, general manager of Juanda airport, told USA Today that all of the results of the days' searches were "nil." He said that Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency had ruled out the oily spots and objects that were spotted in the Java Sea earlier. The agency also dismissed reports of a faint flight recorder ping. Search and rescue teams will expand their search area on Tuesday to include land.
The second day of the search resumed after dawn Monday — early Sunday evening.
First Admiral Sigit Setiayana, the Naval Aviation Center commander at the Surabaya air force base, said that 12 navy ships, five planes, three helicopters and a number of warships were taking part, along with ships and planes from Singapore and Malaysia. The Australian Air Force also sent a search plane.
Vice President Kalla had earlier confirmed that objects were spotted by the Australian Orion plane, but said it was "not yet clear" what they were. Air Force spokesman Rear Marshal Hadi Tjahnanto told MetroTV that an Indonesian helicopter in the eastern part of Belitung island spotted two oily spots about 105 nautical miles east of Tanjung Pandan. He said oil samples would be collected and analyzed to see if they are connected to the missing plane.
At a news conference earlier on Monday, Indonesian National Search and Rescue chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said, "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."
The Airbus A320 was bound for Singapore from Surabaya when it lost contact with air-traffic control Sunday at about 7:24 a.m. Singapore time (6:24 p.m. ET on Saturday), the airline said.
Tony Fernandes, CEO of the regional, low-cost carrier, said it was too early to discuss any operational changes his airline will undergo in light of the missing flight. "Until we have a full investigation and know what went wrong, we really can't speculate," he said. He added that the airline has carried 220 million passengers safely up to this point.
As evening began to fall on a second day of the search, dozens of family members of passengers on the plane remained in limbo at a temporary crisis center set up in Juanda International Airport.
Some wept while others wore expressions ranging from shock to frustration to grim resolve as officials briefed them on the latest updates of the search operations.
Ria Ratna Suri said his sister, her husband and his cousin were aboard the missing flight. His sister owns a small shop in their hometown of Madiun, about 100 miles inland from Surabaya. "They were going to Singapore for a trip," he said. "They were going to spend the New Year there. I still hope everything is OK."
Kenny Tanggu's 27-year-old cousin and his wife were also on their way to Singapore to enjoy the New Year holidays. "I don't know what to think," Tanggu said. "I just want to know where [the plane] is."
The tragedy marks the third commercial air disaster involving airlines in the region this year. Mystery still shrouds Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared March 8 without a trace en route to Beijing with 239 people aboard. On July 17, another Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down over rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine while on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 people on board.
Djoko Murjatmodjo, Indonesia's acting director general of transportation, said that minutes before the AirAsia flight disappeared from radar, the pilot asked air traffic control for permission to avoid a cloud bank by turning left and going higher, to 34,000 feet. Six other commercial airliners were crowding the surrounding airspace, forcing the plane to remain at a lower altitude, the Associated Press reported. Flight 8501 gave no distress signal, Murjatmodjo said.
AccuWeather meteorologist Tyler Roys told USA TODAY the area along the flight path was blasted by a string of severe thunderstorms when the jet disappeared.
AirAsia said in a statement that the jet has seven crew members and 155 passengers, including 16 children and one infant. Among the passengers are 149 Indonesians and three South Koreans, one Malaysian, a Briton and his 2-year-old Singaporean daughter.
Murjatmodjo said the jet is believed to have gone missing somewhere over the Java Sea between Tanjung Pandan on Belitung Island and Pontianak, on Indonesia's part of Borneo island. Contact was lost about 42 minutes after takeoff from Surabaya airport, authorities said.
Financial services company Allianz said its subsidiary Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty UK is the lead insurance firm for the missing aircraft. In a statement, the German-based firm said it is too early to comment on the incident itself, but expressed its support for those affected by it.
AirAsia, which has dominated cheap travel in the region for years, has never lost an aircraft. AirAsia Malaysia owns 49% of the Indonesian subsidiary. Flight 8501 was operated by AirAsia Indonesia, a subsidiary that is 49% owned by AirAsia Malaysia. AirAsia officials changed the airline's Facebook and Twitter account logos from red to gray after the plane disappeared.
The plane's captain, identified in flight documents as Capt. Iriyanto, had a total of 20,000 flying hours, including 6,100 in the Airbus. The first officer had a total of 2,275 flying hours, said AirAsia, based in Sepang, Malaysia, near Kuala Lumpur.
Contributing: Bart Jansen and John Bacon, USA TODAY; Associated Press
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