Flight QZ 8501 Rests At The Bottom Of Sea

29th Dec 2014

Indonesia's search and rescue agency believed that the wreck of the missing flight QZ 8501 could have rested at the bottom of the sea based on the initial findings.

The plane's coordinates when it lost contact were over Karimata Strait, an arm of Java Sea, between Belitung Island and Kalimantan.

The plane left Surabaya's Juanda International Airport at 5:35AM (Western Indonesian Time) on December 28 for Singapore and was scheduled to arrive at 8:30AM (Singapore Standard Time). The aircraft, a narrow-body A320-200 jetliner, carried 162 people on board including its 7 crew members.

The US state department helped the search and rescue operations after Indonesia requested for assistance.

Based on the initial findings, the plane was cruising at an altitude of 32,000 feet when its pilot sent a request to the air traffic controller (ATC) to allow the plane to fly higher to 38,000 feet due to bad weather. The ATC, however, deferred the request citing traffic at a higher altitude.

After two minutes, ATC attempted to send its permission back to the aircraft, but it already disappeared on the radar screen and could no longer establish a contact.

Mr. Bambang Soelistyo, the head of the country's search and rescue agency, said that it has yet to confirm if the reported oil slicks discovered was true.

According to Indonesian Vice-President Jusuf Kalla, they have already deployed 30 vessels and 15 aircraft to scour the area. He also said that they also asked the assistance of passing ships and even fishermen to inform them of any sightings of debris or human remains.

Of the 7 crew members on board, two were pilots and 4 were cabin attendants and one was a company engineer. Most of the 155 passengers were Indonesians while 3 were identified as Koreans, one Englishman, a Singaporean, and a Malaysian. One of the two pilots was a French national.