AirAsia Plane with 162 Passengers Missing – Search Operation to Resume Today

In what is the third such event this year, an AirAsia plane disappeared on Sunday, reportedly carrying 162 people, and is yet to be recovered or found.

The A320-200 Airbus was traveling from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore and the ATC (Air Traffic Control) lost all contact with the aircraft about an hour into its flight from Juanda International Airport.

According to AirAsia, 155 passengers were Indonesian, while 3 were South Koreans and 4 were from Singapore, Malaysia, France and Britain respectively.

Before the plane disappeared, the flying crew requested permission to ascend by 6,000 feet in light of the weather and heavy cloud cover. However, their request could not be approved due to other flights in the area, and the plane disappeared shortly afterwards.

Indonesian authorities are believed to have conducted a thorough search operation using 7 planes, 4 ships and 6 boats, but had to call it off late Sunday to resume it on Monday.

Concerned family members gathered at both the departure and arrival terminals, worried about the fate of their loved ones.

Earlier this year, flight 370, carrying 239 people from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing disappeared, followed by another tragic incident where flight 17 was shot down by rebels while flying over Ukraine.

We will update you further as new updates in this story are available.

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Posted by Hunain Naseer on Dec 29 2014. Filed under Latest News, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.