Indonesia: AirAsia flight en route Singapore with 162 passengers loses contact

Jakarta: An AirAsia flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore lost contact with air traffic control on Sunday, Indonesian media said, citing a Transport Ministry official. [caption id=“attachment_2018959” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AFP.[/caption] Transport Ministry official Hadi Mustofa said the aircraft, flight number QZ 8501, lost contact with the Jakarta air traffic control tower at 6:17 a.m local time. (2317 GMT). The flight was supposed to reach Singapore at at 8:30 a.m. Singapore time (0030 GMT). He said the plane had asked for an unusual route before it lost contact. AirAsia confirmed on its Facebook page that they have lost all contact with the flight. They said, " AirAsia Indonesia regrets to confirm that flight QZ8501 from Surabaya to Singapore has lost contact with air traffic control at 07:24hrs this morning. At the present time we unfortunately have no further information regarding the status of the passengers and crew members on board, but we will keep all parties informed as more information becomes available.  The aircraft was an Airbus A320-200 with the registration number PK-AXC. At this time, search and rescue operations are in progress and AirAsia is cooperating fully and assisting the rescue service." The airline also gave out a emergency helpline number (+622129850801) for the kin of the passengers of the missing flight. With inputs from Reuters