Ships, planes and helicopters have scoured waters off Indonesia’s coast in search of AirAsia Flight QZ8501, but so far they haven’t spotted any sign of the missing commercial jet.
Now the search area teams are combing is expanding, with at least four zones added to the operation.
The hunt for the missing jet resumed on Tuesday, CNN Indonesia reported, with more than 1,100 search and rescue personnel from Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan and New Zealand joining Indonesia’s teams.
They’ve been scanning the water’s surface for signs of the plane, which went missing on Sunday with 162 people aboard. But a top Indonesian official said it’s likely they’ll have to look underwater.
“Our early conjecture is that the plane is in the bottom of the sea,” said Bambang Sulistyo, the head of Indonesia’s search-and-rescue agency. That belief is based on the plane’s flight track and last known coordinates, he said.
Indonesia has reached out to the United Kingdom, France and the United States for help with sonar devices that may be needed for an underwater search, Sulistyo said Monday.
So far, several possible signs of the missing plane, including an oil slick within the search zone and the sound of a faint “ping,” have been discounted.
Indonesian navy helicopter crews involved in the search reported spotting smoke coming from an island, the head of search and rescue in the province of Bangka-Belitung told CNN Indonesia. Search teams will be checking the area where the smoke was seen on Tuesday, he said. Local media in Indonesia said the smoke was seen on Long Island, one of thousands that make up the archipelago that forms Indonesia.
There were also reports of objects found in the search zone, but given that the area has a great deal of traffic along the water, authorities have said objects found won’t automatically indicate a sign of the plane.
Indonesia Vice President Jusuf Kalla told CNN there were “some reports from Australia” about possible objects found, but it was unclear whether they were from the plane.
Rescuers say weather was probably a factor in the plane’s disappearance, and it’s made finding traces of the aircraft more difficult.
Large waves and clouds hampered the search for the plane Sunday and Monday.
“It is not easy, of course … the operation in the sea, especially in the bad weather like this,” Kalla said.
But Kalla said his country will not give up or set a time limit for the operation.
Report: Higher altitude request denied
AirAsia says air traffic controllers lost contact with the aircraft at 7:24 a.m. Sunday, Singapore time (6:24 a.m. in Indonesia).
The plane, flying from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore, went missing as it flew over the Java Sea between the islands of Belitung and Borneo — a heavily traveled shipping channel with shallow waters — Indonesian authorities said.
Before the plane, an Airbus A320-200, lost contact with air traffic controllers, one of the pilots asked to change course and fly at a higher altitude because of bad weather, officials said. Heavy thunderstorms were reported in the area at the time.
Air traffic control approved the pilot’s request to turn left but denied permission for the plane to climb to 38,000 feet from 32,000 feet, Djoko Murjatmodjo, an aviation official at the Indonesian Transport Ministry, told the national newspaper Kompas.
The increased altitude request was denied because there was another plane flying at that height, he said.
Djoko suggested that Flight 8501 ascended despite air traffic control denying it permission.
AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes said storm clouds caused the pilot to ask for a flight plan change. But he added, “We don’t want to speculate whether weather was a factor. We really don’t know.”
Once the aircraft is found, there will be a proper investigation, Fernandes said.
Anxious wait for relatives
Several dozen anguished family members of the passengers met with airport and airline officials in a closed-door briefing Monday at the airport.
As they waited for news, some relatives took cell phone pictures of a flight manifest posted on a wall. The black-and-white papers showed every passenger’s name and seat number.
Others simply sat and dabbed tears from their eyes.
Oei Endang Sulsilowati and her daughter were looking for information about her brother, his wife and their two children.
“We don’t know what to do,” Sulsilowati said. “We are just waiting for news.”
“Our concern right now is for the relatives and the next of kin,” Fernandes said during a news conference in Surabaya.
Some police said authorities were seeking additional materials to help identify passengers, such as photos with close-ups of teeth, DNA, or fingerprints. But police officials later told CNN they were not immediately seeking these materials.
East Java Police have set up a disaster victims identification area at the Surabaya airport.
Of the people on board the passenger jet, 155 are Indonesian, three are South Korean, one is British, one is French, one is Malaysian and one is Singaporean, the airline said.
Eighteen children, including one infant, are among the passengers, the carrier said. Seven of the people on board are crew members.
International search team
Since the flight disappeared in Indonesian airspace, Indonesia is heading up search efforts.
The missing plane is made by Airbus, a French company. And France has dispatched two investigators to Indonesia. They are due to arrive in Jakarta on Monday, France’s Foreign Ministry said.
Malaysia’s transportation minister said his country has deployed three vessels and three aircraft to assist in the search. And the Royal Australian Air Force said Monday that it was deploying a patrol plane to help.
The USS Sampson is on its way to the Java Sea to assist in the search for the missing AirAsia plane, a senior U.S. military official told CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto. The Sampson, a guided-missile destroyer based in San Diego, deployed in October to take part in “maritime security exercises and training” in the Pacific.
China will dispatch aircraft and ships to participate in search and rescue efforts, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said Tuesday.
The MH370 mystery
AirAsia, a successful budget airline group headquartered in Malaysia, had a clean safety record until the disappearance of Flight 8501. The missing plane is operated by the company’s Indonesian affiliate.
The loss of contact with the plane comes nearly 10 months after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which dropped off radar over Southeast Asia on March 8 with 239 people on board.
Searchers have yet to find any remains of Flight 370, which officials believe went down in the southern Indian Ocean after mysteriously flying thousands of kilometers away from its planned route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
But some aviation experts don’t think the search for Flight 8501 will be as challenging as the hunt for MH370.
“We are not talking about the deep Indian Ocean here,” CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest said. “We are talking about congested airspace around Southeast Asia. There will be much better radar coverage. There’s certainly better air traffic control coverage.”
