Officials Say Missing AirAsia Flight 8501 Likely At ‘Bottom Of The Sea’

An Australian Orion aircraft detected “suspicious” objects officials suspect to be missing AirAsia Flight 8501 near Nangka island, about 100 miles southwest of Pangkalan Bun, near central Kalimantan, or 700 miles from the location where the plane lost contact with air traffic controllers early Sunday.

“However, we cannot be sure whether it is part of the missing AirAsia plane,” Putranto cautioned, “We are now moving in that direction, which is in cloudy conditions.”

Further, Air Force spokesman Rear Marshal Hadi Tjahnanto told Indonesia’s MetroTV that an Indonesian helicopter searching the eastern part of Belitung island reported spotting two oily spots on the sea about 105 nautical miles east of Tanjung Pandan, which is a location much closer to the point of last contact. Tjahnanto said samples of the oil are being collected and will be analyzed to see if they are connected to the missing plane.

Overall, officials seem to be staying with their original inclinations, despite where exactly the plane turns out to be located. Unlike the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight believed to have gone down in the Indian Ocean, the depth of the area searched is only 175 feet deep, making locating the AirAsia plane much easier.

“Based on the co-ordinates given to us and evaluation that the estimated crash position is in the sea, the hypothesis is the plane is at the bottom of the sea,” Bambang Soelistyo, the head of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, said in a press conference.

First Adm. Sigit Setiayana, the Naval Aviation Center commander at the Surabaya air force base, said 12 navy ships, 5 planes, 3 helicopters and a number of warships were involved in the search, as well as ships and planes from Singapore and Malaysia. The Australian Air Force also sent the Orion search plane.

AirAsia Flight 8501 vanished Sunday morning on its way from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. The last communication from the cockpit to air traffic control was a request by one of the pilots to increase altitude from 32,000 feet to 38,000 feet because of the rough weather. However, Air traffic control was not able to immediately grant the request because several planes were in airspace at 34,000 feet, according to Bambang Tjahjono, the director of the state-owned company in charge of air-traffic control.

By the time clearance could be given, Flight 8501 had disappeared, Tjahjono said. The twin-engine, single-aisle Airbus A320-200 plane, which never sent a distress signal, was last seen on radar four minutes after the last communication from the cockpit.