Missing AirAsia QZ8501

The logo for AirAsia (AA = 11) shows the Petronas Twin Towers in their hub city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. AirAsia was created to compete against the established Malaysian Airlines (the source company for the missing MH307 flight - see below). AirAsia followed the model of Virgin Airlines who wished to compete against British Airways. AirAsia’s logo resembles Virgin’s, from its script typeface to its red color (which, one notices, is also reversed out of red to white, when appropriate).

An AirAsia flight has lost contact with air traffic control in Jakarta, Indonesia, a crisis center for the airline said Sunday. The plane's flight number is AirAsia Flight QZ8501.

Surabaya, Indonesia, airport official said the missing AirAsia plane had 155 passengers, 6 crew on board. The pilots aboard the flight were Captain Iriyanto, who had a total of 6,100 flying hours, First Officer Remi Emmanuel Plesel, who had a total of 2,275 flying hours, and Flight Engineer Saiful Rakhmad. The cabin crew consisted of four flight attendants.

The actual craft now missing, PK-AXC, involved in this incident, is pictured below, from August 2011.

Here is AirAsia's official statement:

AirAsia Indonesia regrets to confirm that flight QZ8501 from Surabaya to Singapore has lost contact with air traffic control at 07:24 (Surabaya LT) this morning. The flight took off from Juanda International Airport in Surabaya at 0535hours.
The aircraft was an Airbus A320-200 with the registration number PK-AXC. 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.
There were 155 passengers on board, with 138 adults, 16 children and 1 infant. Also on board were 2 pilots and 5 cabin crew.
Nationalities of passengers and crew onboard are as below:
1 Singapore
1 Malaysia
1 France
3 South Korean
156 Indonesia
At this time, search and rescue operations are being conducted under the guidance of The Indonesia of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). AirAsia Indonesia is cooperating fully and assisting the investigation in every possible way.
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.

The flight took off from Juanda International Airport, Surabaya, at 05:35 Western Indonesian Time (WIB, UTC+7) and was scheduled to land at Singapore Changi Airport at 08:30 Singapore Standard Time (SGT, UTC+8). The plane had been under Indonesian air traffic control when it requested to deviate from its original flight path due to poor weather conditions. The pilot had requested to climb to 38,000 feet (11,600 m) to avoid thick cloud, although the final altitude indicated by the transponder and collected by Flightradar24 is 32,000 ft (9,750 m). The plane lost contact with air traffic control at 06:24 WIB while travelling over the Java Sea between Kalimantan and Java, still under Indonesian Air Traffic Control, at normal cruising altitude and speed. A meteorological analysis revealed that the aircraft was traversing a storm cluster during the minutes prior to its disappearance.

No distress signal was sent from the missing aircraft, the Indonesian Transport Ministry said. 

More on Malaysia Airlines MH370, a Boeing 777:

Terrorism, Aliens, Vile Vortices: The Mysteries of Missing Flight 370

Flight 370: Look in Ivan Sanderson's Indian Ocean Vortex?

Mystery Flight 370 Ends in the Indian Ocean Vile Vortex

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