Missing Air Asia plane could be at 'bottom of sea' : Indonesia
This plane, too, had Malaysian connections: The Airbus A320-200 was operated by the Indonesian affiliate of AirAsia, a regional budget carrier based in Malaysia and while it seemed premature to make such comparisons, the Indonesian authorities could not explain Sunday why the AirAsia jet disappeared from radar screens about 40 minutes after leaving the Indonesian city of Surabaya around 5:30 a.m.
By nightfall, more than 12 hours later, searchers facing bad weather had found no sign of the wreckage and the search was called off for the night, Indonesian officials said.
The weather along the path of Flight QZ8501 to Singapore was cloudy, and a United States-based weather monitoring service reported a number of lightning strikes along the way. But the monsoon conditions did not seem insurmountable for a modern airliner.
Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, visiting relatives of people on the flight in Surabaya, told reporters the search by 30 ships and 15 aircraft, about halfway between Surabaya and Singapore, was being hampered by bad weather.
Anger was growing among about 100 relatives at a crisis centre at the airport in Indonesia's second-largest city. "We only need clear information every hour on where they are going," said Franky Chandra, who has a sibling and three friends on the flight, referring to the search teams. "We've been here for two days but the information is unclear. That's all we need."
