Just in: AirAsia flight #QZ8501 with 162 people on board reportedly missing.
Here’s what we gathered on Twitter so far:
- Airbus A320
- 162 onboard, including one Singaporean, one British, one Malaysian, three Koreans and 149 Indonesians.
- Lost contact over Indonesian Airspace
- Officials say flight had asked for an unusual route before it lost contact.
- Flight on route to Singapore from Surabaya Indonesia.
- The flight lost contact with air traffic control, at 6:17 a.m local time. (2317 GMT).
- Last known position:
Air Asia officially confirmed that QZ8501 from Surabaya to Singapore has lost contact at 07:24hrs this morning.
AirAsia has established an Emergency Call Centre that is available for family or friends of those who may have been on board the aircraft. The number is: +622129850801.
[Update 11:30am by CAAS] The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore released a statement confirming that the Aircraft, scheduled to arrive at 0830 hours local time lost contact at 0724 hours local time today, more than 200nm southeast of the Singapore-Jakarta FIR boundary.
Search and rescue operations are in effect by Indonesian authorities from the Pangkal Pinang Search and Rescue office as well as Singapore Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC). The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) and Changi Airport Group (CAG) Crisis Management Centres have already been activated.
The Civil Aviation Authority also reported that all necessary facilities and support have been set up for relatives and friends at the Changi Airport Terminal 2 (Level 3).
In the meantime, Air Asia has changed their red and white logo in their Facebook profile image to a grey logo (shown below).
[Update 12:50pm] Fligthradar24 tweeted that the missing airbus A320-200 was flying at a height of 32,000 feet over Java Sea when ADS-B signal was lost.
[Update 1:00pm] Kamenhub releases the full list of passengers on QZ8501 here.
The list reveals that a total of 155 passengers onboard with 23 no shows along with all the names of the passengers. The passengers include 1 infant, 16 children and 138 adults.
This is a developing story. More to come.
