Flight QZ8501 likely at bottom of the sea, Indonesian search agency says

Malay Mail

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 29 ― Missing Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ501 is likely at the bottom of the sea, Indonesia’s search authorities said today after more than 24 hours lapsed since the disappearance of the commercial plane.

UK daily The Guardian and Indonesian news portal Detik News reported Chief Marshal Bambang Soelistyo as saying that the last coordinates of the A320 jet carrying 162 on board placed it over water.

“The last coordinates were in the sea so it is likely it is on the sea floor,” The Guardian quoted Bambang as saying in a press conference at the Soekarno Hatta airport in Jakarta.

He also reportedly said search and rescue authorities were using a sonar system to look for the missing plane, adding that the tool can detect objects up to a depth of between 1,000m and 2,000m.

The Guardian reported Indonesian officials as being positive about finding wreckage from Flight QZ8501, if the jet has indeed crashed into the sea, as the Java Sea has a relatively shallow depth of 46m, the part of the western Pacific Ocean where the plane disappeared from radar.

Detik News reported Bambang, who heads Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas), as saying it would not be easy to locate the missing plane in the water.

“From previous experience, we found Adam Air only after eight months,” he was quoted saying, referring to Adam Air Flight 574, a domestic flight between Indonesian cities Surabaya and Manado, which crashed in the sea off Sulawesi in 2007.

Flight QZ8501, which carried one Malaysian on board, vanished from Jakarta’s radar at 6.18am local time yesterday amid stormy weather enroute to Singapore from Surabaya in Indonesia.

On board Flight QZ8501 were 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, one Malaysian, one Singaporean, one Frenchman and one Briton, comprising 155 passengers and seven crew members.

Indonesia resumed search operations for the missing jet early this morning, whose last known position was between the Indonesian port of Tanjung Pandan and the town of Pontianak, in West Kalimantan on Borneo island.