AirAsia Flight QZ8501 may now be found after Indonesia officials announced that debris have been spotted in the sea along the path where the flight went missing on Sunday.
An Australian Orion aircraft found several objects near Nangka island, which is about 700 miles from where the missing AirAsia plane lost contact with air traffic controllers. While officials have not been able to confirm whether the objects came from the missing plane, they are now shifting the focus to that area.
“However, we cannot be sure whether it is part of the missing AirAsia plane,” Jakarta’s Air Force base commander Rear Marshal Dwi Putranto said. “We are now moving in that direction, which is in cloudy conditions.”
The plane went missing on Sunday during a flight from Indonesia to Singapore. Officials believe the plane and the 162 people on board crashed somewhere in the ocean.
“We currently suspect that plane is located on the ocean floor,” said Bambang Soelistyo, the head of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency.
Before the AirAsia flight went missing, the pilots had asked to change course to avoid some bad weather. But the airplane never sent a distress signal before being lost to radar.
On the first day, reports circulated that that crash site for AirAsia flight QZ8501 was found near East Belitung .
“We received information from Basarnas in Jakarta that contact had been lost with an AirAsia flight over Bangka Belitung waters at 6:17 a.m. local time. We then dispatched a vessel with a search and rescue team of 22 members to check the information,” Febi Imam Saputra, an information official at Basarnas Bangka Belitung, said as quoted by Antara news agency in Pangkalpinang on Sunday.
Saputra pointed to coordinate of 03.22.46 South and 108.50.07 East as the location of the missing AirAsia flight .
But officials in Malaysia debunked the reports on Sunday, saying that AirAsia flight QZ8501 was still missing.
“Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai has dismissed claims that flight QZ8501 has been found,” ChannelNewsAsia reported.
Several countries have joined in the search for missing AirAsia flight QZ8501. Merdeka.com reported that Jakarta sent seven ships and a helicopter while Singapore deployed one C-130 plane. Officials said the search process was slowed by difficult visibility on the first day.
[Image via Yahoo News]