AirAsia Flight 8501, which went missing over the weekend, has been discovered in the Karimata Strait. Investigators initially discovered dozens of bodies amid the wreckage, confirming earleir speculation that the flight crashed in the region.
AirAsia Flight 8501 flew from Surabaya, Indonesia on Sunday and was bound for Singapore. Shortly into the flight, the Airbus A320 plane was flying near a severe weather system and was instructed by air-traffic control to lower the plane’s altititude. Minutes after the contact made between the plane and control technicians, Flight 8501 disappeared from radar.
Part of the plane’s wreckage and around 40 bodies were intially discovered by search teams led by Indonesian military. The grim discovery was made 66 miles away from the plane’s last known location by an Indonesian Air Force team who saw the plane’s shadow on the seabed during a surveillance flight.
The Washington Post has more:
Recovery teams pulled wreckage and bodies from the sea off Indonesia on Tuesday after an intensive three-day search finally yielded evidence of the grim fate of a passenger jet that plunged from storm-laced skies with 162 people aboard.
Officials from the carrier AirAsia confirmed that the debris was from the plane that disappeared Sunday moments after the pilot asked to climb to a higher altitude in an apparent attempt to avoid rough weather.
“We are sorry to be here today under these tragic circumstances,” AirAsia executive Sunu Widyatmoko said in a statement issued in the Indonesian city of Surabaya, where the plane departed for Singapore.
The international recovery team included naval ships from the United States. According to officials this morning, families held out hope for survivors but it doesn’t appear like that anyone survived the crash.
A majority of the 162 passengers were from Indonesia. There were three from South Korea. There was a passenger each from France, Malaysia, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
The disappearence of AirAsia Flight 8501 is the latest in Asian airline woes, and caused many to ponder the happenings regarding the loss of Malaysia Airline Flight 370.
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Photo: CBS News
