Search for Air Asia plane suspended for the night
Jakarta, December 29, AZERTAC
Search efforts for a missing passenger jet have been suspended for the night.
Air Asia Flight 8501 disappeared over the Java Sea early Sunday morning and the search has been temporarily suspended due to darkness. While the aircraft involved in the search have been grounded for the night, boats continue to search the area for debris.
The plane was carrying 162 people, including 16 children and an infant, from five nations - no Americans - left Indonesia around 5:30 a.m. local time and was expected to arrive in Singapore three hours later.
Searchers spotted two oily patches and floating objects in separate locations, but no one knew whether any of it was related to the plane that vanished Sunday halfway into what should have been a two-hour hop from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. Officials saw little reason to believe the flight met anything but a grim fate.
The second day of the search resumed right after dawn Monday — early Sunday evening ET. F.H. Bambang Soelistyo, the head of Indonesia's search and rescue agency, told reporters in Jakarta that the search would extend to land Tuesday, The Straits Times reported.
Indonesian search and rescue official Achmad Toha says the planes involved in search returned to their base Sunday evening, but that some ships had been nevertheless in the region where the plane lost speak to with air site visitors manage. The air search was set to resume at six a.m.
Initial Admiral Sigit Setiayana, the Naval Aviation Center commander at the Surabaya air force base, mentioned that 12 navy ships, 5 planes, 3 helicopters and a quantity of warships had been taking part, along with ships and planes from Singapore and Malaysia. The Australian Air Force also sent a search plane.
Vice President Kalla confirmed that objects were spotted by the Australian Orion plane in the Java Sea, but said it was "not however clear" what they have been.
Air Force spokesman Rear Marshal Hadi Tjahnanto told MetroTV that an Indonesian helicopter in the eastern element of Belitung island spotted two oily spots on the sea about 105 nautical miles east of Tanjung Pandan — a great deal closer to the point of final speak to. He mentioned samples of the oil would be collected and analyzed to see if they are connected to the missing plane.
Vugar Agayev
Special correspondent
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