Plane disappears with 161 aboard

Search in Java Sea for jet from affiliate of Malaysian carrier

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- An AirAsia plane with 161 people aboard lost contact with ground control today after takeoff from Indonesia on the way to Singapore.

AirAsia, a regional low-fare carrier with a presence in several Southeast Asian countries, said in a statement that the missing plane was an Airbus A320-200 and that search and rescue operations were in progress.

"At the present time we unfortunately have no further information regarding the status of the passengers and crew members on board, but we will keep all parties informed as more information becomes available," the airline said.

Flight QZ8501 lost communication with Jakarta's air traffic control at 7:24 a.m. Singapore time, about an hour before it was scheduled to land in Singapore, the Singapore Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement. The contact was lost about 42 minutes after takeoff from Indonesia's Surabaya airport, Hadi Mustofa, an official of the Transportation Ministry, told Indonesia's MetroTV.

Indonesia Air Transport Director Djoko Murja Mojo said in a briefing in Jakarta that the pilot requested to fly at a higher altitude because of clouds.

"The aircraft was on the submitted flight plan route and was requesting deviation due to en-route weather before communication with the aircraft was lost while it was still under the control of the Indonesian Air Traffic Control," AirAsia said.

The plane lost contact when it was believed to be over the Java Sea between Kalimantan and Java islands, Mustofa said.

The plane had six crew members and 155 passengers, including 16 children and one infant, said Trikora Raharjo, the general manager of Surabaya's Juanda airport.

There were six foreigners -- three South Koreans, including an infant, and one each from Singapore, the United Kingdom and Malaysia, said Raharjo. The rest were Indonesians, he said.

The Singapore statement said search and rescue operations have been activated by the Indonesian authorities. It said the Singapore air force and the navy also were searching with two C-130 planes.

Hadi Tjahjanto, a spokesman for the Indonesian air force, said the plane's last reported position was 127 nautical miles from Palangkaraya, a town on Borneo with an airport.

Flightradar24, a flight tracking website, said the plane was delivered in September 2008, which would make it 6 years old. It said the plane was flying at 32,000 feet, the regular cruising altitude for most jetliners, when the signal from the plane was lost.

Indonesia AirAsia is the Jakarta-based affiliate of AirAsia, a Malaysian low-fare air carrier.

Malaysia is already reeling from crashes this year of two planes operated by state-run carrier Malaysia Airlines. MH370 vanished from radar screens en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8 without warning, while MH17 was shot down in Ukraine in July. The two accidents killed a combined 537 people. No debris of MH370 has been found in what has become the world's longest search for a missing passenger jet.

Information for this article was contributed by staff members of The Associated Press; Shashank Bengali of the Los Angeles Times; by Allen Wan, Weiyi Lin and Andrew Janes of Bloomberg News; and by Thomas Fuller of The New York Times.

A Section on 12/28/2014

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