JAKARTA: An Australian Orion aircraft has detected suspicious objects near Nangka island near the location where the plane lost contact.
According to an Indonesian official, the objects have been spotted in the sea by a search plane hunting for the missing AirAsia jet.
Jakarta’s Air Force base commander Rear Marshal Dwi Putranto says he was informed on Monday that an Australian Orion aircraft had detected suspicious objects near Nangka island,
The object was located about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Pangkalan Bun, near central Kalimantan, or 700 miles (1,120 kilometers) from the location where the plane lost contact, He said.
“However, we cannot be sure whether it is part of the missing AirAsia plane,” Putranto says, “We are now moving in that direction, which is in cloudy conditions.”
The search for missing Malaysian Airline QZ- 8501 has been going on in various areas of plane routes as 10 ships, two helicopters and diver teams of Indonesia is busy to locate AirAsia flight.
According to reports earlier in the morning , at least two ships are close to the expected spot where plain might have crashed.
Earlier, Airbus 320-200 from the Surabaya to Singapore had lost contact with air traffic control on Sunday, AirAsia confirmed the regretful report.
The plane left Juanda International Airport at 5:27 a.m. Sunday (5:27 p.m. Saturday ET) and was due to arrive in Singapore at 8:37 a.m. Sunday (7:37 p.m. ET), according to the website.
AirAsia Indonesia released an updated official statement disclosing the details of passengers and crew members on board of the missing flight QZ-8501 on Sunday morning (December 28).
According to official statement, there were 155 passengers on board, with 138 adults, 16 children and 1 infant. Nationalities of passengers and crew onboard were 156 from Indonesia, 3 South Korean, one each from France, Malaysia and Singapore respectively.
There were two pilots, four flight attendants and one engineer on board. The captain in command had a total of 6,100 flying hours and the first officer a total of 2,275 flying hours, statement said.
The Indonesia of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is supervising search and rescue operations were underway for QZ-8501.
The aircraft was on the submitted flight plan route and was requesting deviation due to enroute weather before communication with the aircraft was lost while it was still under the control of the Indonesian Air Traffic Control (ATC).
The aircraft had undergone its last scheduled maintenance on 16 November 2014.
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