At least 40 dead bodies and some plane debris have been recovered six miles from an area where AirAsia Flight 8501 last made contact with air traffic controllers before mysteriously vanishing two days ago over the Java Sea, the Associated Press reported.
Flight QZ 8501, traveling from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore with 162 people on board, disappeared early Sunday morning, prompting Indonesia to quickly launch a massive search and rescue operation in order to locate the missing plane, the airline confirmed. Two days after the plane vanished, wreckage and bloated bodies without life jackets were spotted floating in Indonesian waters, proof that the plane had crashed into the sea.
"AirAsia Indonesia regrets to inform that The National Search and Rescue Agency Republic of Indonesia (BASARNAS) today confirmed that the debris found earlier today is indeed from QZ8501, the flight that had lost contact with air traffic control on the morning of 28th December 2014," the airline said in a statement.
At 7:24 a.m. Singapore time on Sunday (6:24 p.m. EST on Saturday), Airbus 320-200 lost communication with Indonesia's Surabaya Juanda International Airport shortly after the plane's pilots requested "deviation due to en-route weather," AirAsia said in a statement.
The pilot had also requested to increase altitude to 38,000 feet from 32,000 feet to "avoid clouds" since thunderstorms were reported in the area with clouds up to 50,000 feet, BBC News reported.
While ground control in Jakarta approved the pilot's request to divert the flight, the request to raise elevation hadn't been approved before losing contact with the plane, said Djoko Murjatmodjo, Indonesian air transport director.
On the third day of searching, the first signs of the jet were found in shallow, aqua waters only about 10 miles from the plane's last known coordinates. It included a life jacket, an emergency exit door, parts of the jetliner's interior, an oxygen tank and a bright blue plastic suitcase, according to Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Director, SB Supriyadi.
Initially, six corpses were spotted about 160 kilometers (100 miles) from Borneo island, First Adm. Sigit Setiayanta, Naval Aviation Center commander at Surabaya Air Force base, told reporters. Later on, several more bodies were being retrieved by helicopters and the assistance of navy ships, Fox News reported.
"The warship Bung Tomo has retrieved 40 bodies and the number is growing. They are very busy now," a navy spokesman added.
In addition, the "shadow" of a jet has been spotted on the seabed, Sky News reported.
Three of the country's ships "have been asked to proceed towards the area where bodies and debris were found" and an additional ship will "set sail this evening to join the operation," Singapore Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen said in a Facebook post.
Meanwhile, AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes expressed sorrow, saying, "My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ8501. Words cannot express how sorry I am."
"I have apologized profusely for what they are going through," he said of his contact with relatives. "I am the leader of this company, and I have to take responsibility. That is why I'm here. I'm not running away from my obligations."
However, it remains unclear on what brought the plane down.
The plane had six Indonesian crew, a French crew member and 155 passengers, including 16 children and one infant. Among the passengers are three South Koreans, a Singaporean, a Malaysian and a British person. The rest are Indonesians, the airline confirmed.
The captain in command had a total of 6,100 flying hours and the first officer had a total of 2,275 flying hours, according to the airline, the New York Times said.
Meanwhile, the tragedy of the AirAsia flight is the third air incident of 2014 that involves Malaysia, according to USA Today.
Malaysia's national carrier, Malaysia Airlines, suffered two disasters in 2014. In March, the airline lost contact with flight MH370 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew aboard. It remains missing. In July, flight MH17 was downed over eastern Ukraine, killing 298 people.
