Air Asia flight search resumes on day three
December 30, 2014
Countries around Indonesia sent ships and planes to help looking for the missing aircraft on Tuesday, on the third day after the airliner went missing.
Around 30 ships and 15 reconnaissance planes have been sent to look for the liner, Singapore's Channel News Asia reported on Tuesday.
Indonesia had also asked for help from the US to look for the plane, Singapore media reported.
Indonesian rescue agency officials also told local media that they would expand their search to land. On Monday, rescue teams announced that they would focus on an area of 70 square miles between the island of Belitung, off Sumatra and Borneo islands. The sea in the area was only 50 to 100 meters deep and the chances of finding the plane were much higher, officials told the media.
The Airbus A320-200 disappeared during a flight from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore after its pilot was refused permission to change the plane's route following bad weather. Indonesia's Transport Ministry said the pilots asked permission to turn left and fly higher to avoid clouds three minutes before the plane was last seen on the radar.
Officials said the change was refused because of heavy air traffic. The AirAsia flight QZ8501 did not issue a distress signal and disappeared over the Java Sea a few minutes later.
AirAsia gave the nationalities of those on board as 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans and one each from Singapore, Malaysia and Britain, as well as the co-pilot, a French national.
AirAsia Indonesia is a unit of Malaysia-based AirAsia which dominates the regional market for low-cost air travel and at least until now, had never suffered a fatal accident.
The apparent crash comes near the end of a disastrous year for Malaysian air travel.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared with 239 people on board while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March, and has yet to be found. In July flight MH17 was came down over eastern Ukraine - likely having been shot down - over an area controlled by pro-Russia separatists.
mg/rc (AFP, AP, Reuters)