Indonesian official says Australian planes spot
objects in sea in AirAsia search area. All the
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09.46 In Singapore, Tom Phillips has just been
speaking to AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes.
Tom says:
He looks exhausted after the events of last 36
hours.
Mr Fernandes told me:
It's a horrific experience - I wouldn't
want anyone to go through what I am
going through right now - but we have
to stay strong and help the people that have
been involved in this tragedy.
09.17 In other AirAsia news, an AirAsia Zest
plane with 184 people on board developed a
tyre problem in the central Philippine city of
Tagbilaran, prompting the airline, which is partly
owned by AirAsia Philippines, to cancel the
flight.
The incident comes as rescuers search for a
missing AirAsia plane that disappeared on a
flight from Indonesia to Singapore with 162 on
board.
At least four domestic flights to and from
Tagbilaran were cancelled due to the incident on
Sunday, Civil Aviation Authority of the
Philippines spokesman Eric Apolonio said. The
flight had 178 passengers and six crewmembers.
The Airbus A320 aircraft's tyre was later fixed,
allowing it to resume its flight to the Philippine
capital Monday morning. No reason was given
for the problem.
09.15 This map shows where the Australian
plane spotted floating objects.
The site is near Nangka Island, about 100 miles
southwest of Pangkalan Bun.
08.51 German insurer Allianz said on Monday it
was the lead re-insurer to the AirAsia jet missing
off the Indonesian coast with 162 people on
board, making it the third major airline accident
the company has been involved in this year.
The German company, which has Malaysia
Airlines as a client, was the main reinsurer to
flight MH370 that disappeared over the Indian
Ocean in March, as well as to flight MH17 which
was shot down in July while flying over Ukraine.
"We can confirm that Allianz Global Corporate &
Specialty UK (AGCS) is the lead reinsurer for
AirAsia, for aviation hull and liability insurance,"
an Allianz spokeswoman said in a statement
emailed to Reuters.
Aviation incidents accounted for four of the top
10 major insurance losses not linked to natural
catastrophes in the first eight months of 2014,
putting pressure on aviation claims that are
already rising due to the use of expensive
materials and demanding safety regulation, an
Allianz report said.
Allianz declined to comment on the extent of its
exposure or to identify other insurers with
exposure to the missing Indonesia AirAsia plane,
an Airbus A320-200.
But Reuters calculations show the minimum
payout to cover for this accident could be
around $100 million.
08.48 Here is a roundup of the teams currently
involved in the search for the missing plane:
- Indonesia:
Three warships in area and two others on their
way, 12 search and rescue agency vessels and
scores of small boats. Indonesia has one pinger
locator for finding the plane's underwater
locator beacon.
Two C-130 Hercules aircraft, two Super Puma
helicopters, one Boeing maritime patrol plane,
two CN-235 maritime patrol aircraft.
- Australia:
One AP-3C Orion maritime surveillance plane.
- Singapore:
Two Hercules C-130 aircraft, a frigate and a
missile corvette. Landing ship tank and
submarine support and rescue vessel on
standby.
Singapore has also offered two pinger locators.
- Malaysia:
One Hercules C-130, three ships.
- China:
Beijing has offered to send ships and aircraft.
- United States:
Washington has also offered assistance if
needed.
08.31 Earlier today, Indonesia's search and
rescue agency said that the AirAsia "hypothesis"
is that it "is at the bottom of the sea"
08.12 We're expecting more detail on the objects
soon.
But in the interim, it's worth reading what
former British Airways pilot Alastair
Rosenschein makes of it all.
He argues that he disappearance of Air Asia
flight QZ8501 seems mysterious, but the facts
will eventually emerge.
Missing Air Asia jet will not be a mystery
07.59 The vice president of Indonesia is
expected at Surabaya airport shortly, where our
correspondent Tom Phillips is waiting to hear
what he says. Tony Fernandes, the CEO of Air
Asia, is also there. We will keep you posted on
what they say.
07.54 More detail on the sighting of objects in
the sea.
Jakarta's Air Force base commander Rear
Marshal Dwi Putranto says he was informed
Monday that an Australian Orion aircraft had
detected suspicious objects near Nangka island,
about 100 miles southwest of Pangkalan Bun,
near central Kalimantan, or 700 miles from the
location where the plane lost contact.
Mr Putranto says:
However, we cannot be sure whether it
is part of the missing AirAsia plane.
We are now moving in that direction, which is in
cloudy conditions.
07.53 These are the latest images from the
search control centre.
07.45 We're working to bring you more detail on
the objects spotted by the Australian plane.
But some key points to remember:
• The sea in the search area is not especially
deep - an average of 150ft
• Fishermen have reported seeing a plane crash
at the tiny island of Pulau Nangka, which is not
too far from the plane's last point of contact,
while others saw plane coming down at Pulau
Lung
• The search area is roughly the size of
California
07.40 SURABAYA, Indonesia (AP) - Indonesian
official says Australian planes spot objects in sea
in AirAsia search area.
07.26 Airline operations will go under full
review, as AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes insists
safety is "paramount"
07.06 Malaysia's ministry of transport has just
sent us an update on the search and rescue
operation.
It reads:
The search operations for missing flight
QZ8501 is still ongoing and led by
Indonesian authorities. The Malaysian
government is committed to assist Indonesia in
this operation and have deployed assets to the
area to aid in the search.
The Royal Malaysian Navy vessels, the KD
PAHANG, KD LEKIR and KD LEKIU have been
deployed and will comb the entire span of the
search area. The Royal Malaysian Air Force
(RMAF) aircraft have been assigned and
currently searching the area east of Pulau
Belitung. They will also receive additional
instructions from the Indonesian coordinating
authorities for any further assignments within
the search area.
We are in close contact with the government of
Indonesia and continue to work closely in
finding the missing aircraft. Our thoughts and
prayers are with the passengers, crew and
families of those onboard AirAsia Indonesia
flight QZ8501.
07.01 The missing flight dominates front pages
in the region.
This is a Chinese newspaper, the Sin Chew Daily.
The headline describes the missing AirAsia flight
QZ8501, with 162 people on board.
06.52 A huge search operation has resumed,
involving 12 navy ships, five planes, three
helicopters and a number of warships. It was
suspended on Sunday night due to poor visibility
but resumed this morning.
06.10 The Telegraph's Tom Phillips in Surabaya
has spoken to the sister of Natalina Wuntargo, a
31-year-old who was on the flight, who said her
relative had been heading to Kuala Lumpur for
an end of year break and had planned to return
home to Surabaya on January 4.
"My mother was watching television when she
saw the news," said Natalia, her sister. "She
called me and said: 'The plane lost contact.'"
"I spoke to her one day before she left," added
Andreas, 27, the missing woman's brother. "She
said: 'I'm going on vacation. She was very, very
happy."
Hansen Widjaja, a hotel employee from Jakarta,
said he had four relatives on the plane including
two young children.
"I don't know - it feels like God's will," he said
as he waited for newa at Surabaya airport with
dozens of other relatives. Around him four
elderly women huddled together and wept as
they braced themselves for the worst.
"I don't know what happened - whether it was
the weather maybe, or the operation of the
airplane," added Mr Widjaja, 25. "I don't know."
Even after more than 24 hours without news, he
said he had not given up hope. "We must have
positive thinking while there is no news. Now,
we can't just make assumptions. We cannot
blame anyone right now."
05.35 To put the search operation into context,
the area being trawled is 124,000 sq kilometres
- roughly the size of California.
05.20 The plight of a missing AirAsia jet lost
cannot be equated with Malaysia Airlines Flight
MH370 which vanished without a trace in
March, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott
has just said.
Australia is leading the search for MH370, which
was on a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to
Beijing when it disappeared off radars on March
8 with 239 people onboard.
"I think it would be a big mistake to equate
what has happened here with MH370," Abbott
told Sydney radio station 2GB. "MH370, as
things stand, is one of the great mysteries of
our time. It doesn't appear that there's any
particular mystery here. It's an aircraft that was
flying a regular route on a regular schedule, it
struck what appears to have been horrific
weather, and it's down. But this is not a mystery
like the MH370 disappearance and it's not an
atrocity like the MH17 shooting down''.
Families of passengers onboard missing QZ8501
wait in Juanda International Airport
05.05 Tony Fernandes, CEO of AirAsia, has been
tweeting his prayers for those 162 passengers:
Keeping positive and staying strong. My heart
bleeds for all the relatives of my crew and our
passangers. Nothing is more important to us.
— Tony Fernandes (@tonyfernandes)
December 29, 2014
04.44 Looks as though relatives have been
relayed the news from the press conference:
Looks like they are being briefed on what is
happening. Many in floods of tears, clutching
cloths to their faces #QZ8501
— Tom Phillips (@tomphillipsin) December 29,
2014
However, they haven't been told the specifics.
Tom Phillips says relatives are telling him they
still have no word on what actually happened to
the plane or if wreckage has been found. Most
are getting news from Internet or local TV.
"We have no information," says Natalia, an
Indonesian woman whose 31-year-old sister was
on the plane. She has been sleeping at the hotel
with her eight-year-old son since last night.
Her sister was heading to Kuala Lumpur via
Singapore for a quick end of year holiday. "We
are so, so sad," her sister says.
'She was very, very happy' - brother of one
young woman who was heading off on holiday
on missing flight #QZ8501 pic.twitter.com/
s3dBPkPi5W
— Tom Phillips (@tomphillipsin) December 29,
2014
03.50 Tom Phillips , our correspondent in
Surabaya, has been shown a map by
investigators of the location teams are focusing
on:
Senior aviation official tells me 'we hope we can
hear good news' abt survivors from #QZ8501 .
Focus on area below pic.twitter.com/
MwhIMdEYEa
— Tom Phillips (@tomphillipsin) December 29,
2014
He also spoke to a senior civil aviation chief
based in Surabaya - one of dozens of officials
who have gathered at the airport there, along
with relatives. Asked if there was any chance of
finding survivors he said: "I'm not sure but
there is a possibility. We are still waiting for
information from our search and rescue people.
They are working and we hope we can hear
good news from the site"
03.42 AIrAsia CEO Tony Fernandes is now
speaking. He says the group has carried 220
million passengers in 13 years and has never
suffered any fatalities: “Until today we have
never lost a life," he says. "No airline can
guarantee 100 per cent safety to its
passengers."
03.33 Aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas spoke to
several check captains and believes the pilot of
the QZ8501 encountered difficult weather
conditions but flew too slow in his efforts to
avoid it.
"The QZ8501 was flying too slow, about 100
knots which is about 160 km/h too slow. At that
altitude that's exceedingly dangerous," Mr
Thomas said.
"Pilots believe that the crew, in trying to avoid
the thunderstorm by climbing, somehow have
found themselves flying too slow and thus
induced an aerodynamic stall similar to the
circumstances of the loss of Air France AF447 to
crash in 2009," Mr Thomas told AAP news
agency.
Relatives of missing Air Asia QZ8501 passengers
at the crisis centre of Juanda International
Airport
03.20 The brother of a British man Chi-Man
Choi, who was travelling on the missing jet, has
admitted they are preparing 'for the worst', as
searches began again.
Chi-Wai Choi, hassaid he was comforting his
elderly parents, hoping for positive news but
nevertheless 'preparing them for the worst.'
'It doesn't look good at the moment. I am sure
if there was anything to find then they would
have found it by now.' he told The Sun. 'It is a
very tricky time at the moment. We are just
holding together for my parents.
03.00 Probably not the news families want to
hear, but Mr Soelistyo said Indonesia did not
have "the tools", such as submersible vehicles,
required to retrieve the plane from the seabed,
but that it is reaching out to other countries for
help if necessary.
"Due to the lack of technology that we have, I
have coordinated with our foreign minister so
we will borrow from other countries which have
offered. They are the UK, France and US," he
said.
Our China correspondent Tom Phillips is at the
press conference at Surabaya airport:
Packed outdoor press conf at Surabaya airport
now. Officials say #AirAsia8501 likely at bottom
of sea pic.twitter.com/EU9QvIkyrl
— Tom Phillips (@tomphillipsin) December 29,
2014
02.30 The missing AirAsia plane is likely at the
bottom of the sea, Indonesia's National Search
and Rescue Agency chief had said, striking a
pessimistic tone just a few hours into the search.
"Based on the coordinates given to us and
evaluation that the estimated crash position is in
the sea, the hypothesis is the plane is at the
bottom of the sea," Bambang Soelistyo told a
press conference.
"That's the preliminary suspicion and it can
develop based on the evaluation of the result of
our search."
02.10 Channel News Asia, quoting Indonesian
officials, is reporting that fishermen heard a
crash at the tiny island of Pulau Nangka, which
is not too far from the plane's last point of
contact, while others saw plane coming down at
Pulau Lung.
02.05 David Millward, the Telegraph's former
transport editor, writes:
2014 is shaping up to be the worst
year for airline fatalities so far this
decade. Statistics compiled by the
Flight Safety Foundation show that
even before the disappearance of the AirAsia
flight there were 526 deaths, with 162 people
reported missing that would take the figure up
to nearly 700 over the past 12 months.
Despite the losses of the two Malaysia airlines
planes, 2014 was set to see a continued
improvement in commercial airline safety
according to figures compiled by the
International Air Transport Association, the
industry trade body.
A key question is how much live information is
available to investigators. Following the loss of
MH370, IATA has been pushing ahead with a
scheme to make it easier to keep track of
everything which is happening on an aircraft
and during its flight. Much of the work by the
Aircraft Tracking Task Force is due to be
completed over the next 12 months. The aim is
to increase the amount of live data being
transmitted and stored in the cloud, rather than
relying what is stored on the flight data recorder
- or black box.
01.50 he plane had an Indonesian captain,
Iryanto, who uses one name, had more than
20,000 flying hours, of which 6,100 were with
AirAisa on the Airbus 320. The first officer had
2,275 flying hours.
"Papa, come home, I still need you," Angela
Anggi Ranastianis, the captain's 22-year-old
daughter pleaded on her Path page late Sunday,
which was widely quoted by Indonesian media.
"Bring back my papa. Papa, please come home."
At Iryanto's house in the East Java town of
Sidoarjo, neighbors, relatives and friends
gathered Monday to pray and recite the Quran
to support the distraught family. Their desperate
cries were so loud, they could sometimes be
heard outside where three LCD televisions had
been set up to monitor search developments.
"He is a good man. That's why people here
appointed him as our neighborhood chief for
the last two years," said Bagianto Djoyonegoro, a
friend and neighbor, adding that despite being
busy with his job, Iryanto was always very active
in the community and attentive to the needs of
the people around him.
Many recalled him as an experienced Air Force
pilot who flew F-16 fighter jets before becoming
a commercial airline pilot.
#AirAsia #QZ8501 Pilot : Captain Irianto
pic.twitter.com/OpeofUWdBF
— Tanto19 (@Tanto19) December 28, 2014
01.20 Shares in AirAsia fell 11.6 percent after
one of its aircraft went missing in bad weather
on Sunday on its way to Singapore from the
Indonesian city of Surabaya.
Shares of the Malaysia-based budget airline fell
at the start of trade on Monday, after Indonesia
resumed its search for the missing jetliner
QZ8501 at first light on Monday.
01.10 It seems AirAsia Flight 8501's request for
higher altitude was apparently denied due to
traffic, just before it disappeared.
00.55 At least some families tonight can breath a
sigh of relief. A flight from Surabaya to
Singapore on Monday morning, using the same
flight number, has landed safely:
UPDATE: Today's #QZ8501 flight has landed
safely at Changi Airport, Terminal 1 http://t.co/
I9lXiR4BQ4 pic.twitter.com/GGX6RFm4LO
— Channel NewsAsia (@ChannelNewsAsia)
December 29, 2014
00.35 Experts are saying if the plane did come
down in the sea there's an outside chance they
could still find survivors as the water is relatively
warm.
00.20 Indonesia rescue agency says the search
will focus on 270 nautical mile radius off
Belitung island in the Java sea. Five aircraft will
be sent to search for the plane, including two
C130 military transport aircraft and a Boeing
737, Indonesian air force spokesman Hadi
Cahyanto told AFP.
"Two planes have already left. Three more will
follow suit. It is cloudy in some parts but still
bright," Mr Cahyanto said. "We are focusing the
search area in the waters on the eastern and
northern part of Belitung island."
Indonesia's vice-president Jusuf Kalla monitors
progress in search for AirAsia Flight QZ8501
during a visit to the National Search and Rescue
Agency in Jakarta
23.30 Indonesian officials say the search has
officially resumed for the jet, which has now
been missing for 24 hours. It is 06.30 local time.
They are heading to east Belitung island, near
where the plane last made contact. Weather is
only a little better than yesterday's treacherous
conditions.
23.05 The pilot of the plane has been named as
Captain Iriyanto, while the co-pilot is believed to
be Frenchman Remi Emmanual Plesel. A picture
of the pilot has been posted on social media by
his daughter Angela Ranastianis. Capt Irianto's
family has been praised as 'a very caring
person'
La photo du Français Rémi Plesel, 1er officier de
bord du vol #AirAsia #QZ8501 http://t.co/
l1JN6T3bky pic.twitter.com/vxk9TZq03q
— Dreuz.info (@Dreuz_1fo) December 28, 2014
22.34 Sunrise is approaching in Indonesia, at
which point the search can continute for the
missing plane. Indonesia, Singapore and
Malaysia yesterday launched a search-and-
rescue operation near Belitung island in the Java
Sea, the area where the airliner lost contact with
the ground.
The air search was suspended last night with
just a handful of ships continuing the search in
the darkness.
22.00 This appears to be a picture of another of
the missing passengers, named by a friend to
the Telegraph as Maria Florentina Widodo. Her
father posted this selfie of the two of them on
an earlier flight, asking friends to pray for her
safety.
Semoga putri dr. Widodo dosen biokimia FK
Wijaya Kusuma Surabaya selalu dalam
lindungan-Nya #PrayForAirAsia pic.twitter.com/
KLgg5XbztF
— Bigi (@DrBigi) December 28, 2014
21.45 An Indonesian family who had been
scheduled to take the missing Air Asia flight has
told how they narrowly missed boarding after
cancelling their holiday the day before.
Chandra Susanto was booked on flight QZ8501
from Surabaya to Singapore with his wife Inge
Ferdiningsih and three children Christopher,10,
Nadine, seven, and Felix, five, when his father
became ill and they postponed the trip.
20.30 While the disappearance of the Air Asia
flight may seem bizarre, Alastair Rosenschein,
a former BA pilot, says that there are rarely any
real mysteries in aviation.
Missing Asia Airlines jet will not be a mystery
He writes:
There are a number of possible
explanations. First, the area where the
aircraft went missing includes a large
expanse of sea and deep vegetation covered
islands on either side of its intended flight path.
Second, the onboard Electronic Transmitter, or
ELT, is designed to broadcast an aircraft’s
position after ditching in the sea, and does not
automatically trigger after an accident.
And third, radar contact is maintained by line of
sight: it will not register a distant aircraft at
ground or sea level.
This leaves the black box, or Flight Data
Recorder (FDR) beacon which, as we should all
know following the MH370 disappearance, only
has a range of up to five-and-a-half miles and a
battery life of 30 days. Only with the right
equipment and a considerable amount of luck
can a plane be located through these
transmissions.
There are also numerous reasons for the
perceived delay by the Indonesian authorities in
declaring an emergency and triggering a search
and rescue operation.
20.00 It's 4am in Southeast Asia, and the search
will resume in two hours time.
To recap - Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia
are involved.
The US and Australia have also volunteered to
help.
19.49 It's the early hours of the morning in
Singapore and Indonesia, and we are expecting
the search to resume at 6am local time.
18.53 It was only a matter of time until a Fox
News host asked the question to which we've
all been wanting to know the answer: Did the
plane disappear because of confusion over
metric and imperial systems?
During breaking coverage of missing Flight
QZ8501, Anna Kooiman asked former FAA
spokesperson Scott Brenner if the “real reason”
the plane had disappeared was because of the
“different way other countries train their pilots.”
Even when we think about
temperature, it’s Fahrenheit or Celsius.
It’s kilometers or miles. You know, everything
about their training could be similar, but
different.
It’s not just a difference in the way that we
measure things?
Is it not as safe in that part of the world?
Because our viewers may be thinking,
‘International travel, is it safe? Is it not safe?’
Mr Brenner attempted to reassure her that
confusion over imperial and metric systems
would have had nothing to do with the
disappearance.
18.13 This summary of everything we know so
far about the weather system at the time the
flight disappeared, produced by Mashable, is
well worth a read.
Andrew Freedman writes:
Here's what we know so far:
• Weather — from fog to
thunderstorms — is a contributing factor in the
majority of aviation accidents, including the
disappearance of an Air France Airbus A330 off
the coast of Brazil in 2009.
• A large area of disturbed weather, including
areas of intense thunderstorms with cloud tops
that reached or exceeded the AirAsia flight's
cruising altitude, were likely in the vicinity of the
plane when it disappeared. Unusually heavy
rainfall has caused widespread flooding in parts
of Thailand, Indonesia
The flight's pilot requested a turn to avoid bad
weather ahead of the plane, which is a standard
procedure for when flights encounter poor
weather and turbulence.
18.00 Rescuers are due to resume their search
for the missing Air Asia flight in four hours time.
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