Concern Grows As Search For Missing AirAsia Flight Enters Second Day
An AirAsia flight traveling from Indonesia to Singapore disappeared over the Java Sea Sunday evening amid a flight stricken with stormy weather, the airline said in a statement. Concern over the jet's fate has heightened as the search for the missing plane entered its second day Monday.
Search crews called off their search for the missing AirAsia flight 8501 Sunday evening as night fell, vowing to resume their search for the missing plane, carrying 162 passengers, at dawn on Monday. Despite the darkness, Indonesia said that some ships were still in the Java Sea searching for the plane.
The commercial aircraft reportedly lost contact with air control at 7:24 a.m. local time over the Java Sea on Sunday morning.
"We have no idea at the moment what went wrong," Tony Fernandes, CEO of AirAsia, said in a statement Sunday as the plane neared the 16-hour mark of being lost. "Let's not speculate at the moment."
According to the Indonesian Transport Ministry, the Southeast Asia's notoriously bad weather during this time of year is centered around the area's wet season that caused clouds as high as 50,000 feet when the commercial airliner went missing Sunday.
Indonesia's Transport Ministry said it is not uncommon for planes to have difficulty flying during this time of year.
CBS News Aviation and Safety Expert Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger told the media outlet that it's too soon to know whether the flight's passengers and crew will be safely rescued from the plane.
"What we do know is that the airplane by this time of course would have exhausted its fuel supply and would have reached the surface of the Earth. We don't know exactly where or in what shape," Sullenberger told "Face of the Nation" Sunday.
