‘Air Asia’s plane at bottom of sea’
The Head of Indonesia's Search-and-Rescue Agency, Bambang Soelistyo, has said the missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 is likely to be at the bottom of the sea.
Advertisement
He said the hypothesis was based on the co-ordinates of the plane when contact with it was lost.
The search for the Airbus A320-200, which disappeared with 162 people on board last Sunday on a flight from Indonesia to Singapore, had ended for a second day.
The search area will be widened today.
Flight QZ8501 had left Surabaya in eastern Java at 05:35 last Sunday (22:35 GMT last Saturday) and was due to arrive in Singapore at 08:30 (00:30 GMT).
The pilot, Captain Iriyanto and co-pilot Remi Emmanuel Plesel, had requested a course change because of bad weather but did not send any distress call before the plane disappeared from radar screens between Borneo and Sumatra.
"Based on the co-ordinates 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 news conference in Jakarta.
Indonesian Vice-President, Jusuf Kalla, said earlier that 30 ships and 15 aircraft were taking part in the search, and that ships in the area and "even fishermen" were being asked to join in.
AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes said this was his "worst nightmare".
The captain, Iriyanto, had more than 20,500 flight hours, almost 7,000 of them with AirAsia, Mr Fernandes said. The co-pilot Plesel, is a French national.