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| The Pilot |
An Indonesian official says objects have been spotted in the sea by a search plane hunting for the missing AirAsia jet.
Jakarta's Air Force base commander Rear Marshal Dwi Putranto said he was informed on Monday an Australian Orion aircraft had detected suspicious objects near Nangka island, about 160 kilometres south-west of Pangkalan Bun, near central Kalimantan.
It is 1,120 kilometres from the location where the plane lost contact.
'However, we cannot be sure whether it is part of the missing AirAsia plane,' Rear Marshall Putranto said.
'We are now moving in that direction, which is in cloudy conditions.'
It comes after aviation experts said the flight was flying 'about 160 km/h too slow' when it encountered bad weather conditions
The flight went missing at 6.17am local time on Sunday while travelling from Indonesia to Singapore with 162 people on board, speculation on what may have happened points to weather, speed and an older radar system.
On Monday, as the search the missing aircraft resumed, the head of Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency, Henry Bambang Sulistyo, said the plane was most likely 'at the bottom of the sea'.
'Based on the coordinates given to us and evaluation that the estimated crash position is in the sea, the hypothesis is the plane is at the bottom of the sea,' Mr Sulistyo told a press conference.
'That's the preliminary suspicion and it can develop based on the evaluation of the result of our search.'
The A320, while sophisticated, is not equipped with the latest radar, Mr Thomas said.
The radar used by the A320 can sometimes have problems in thunderstorms and the pilot may have been deceived by the severity of these particular ones.
The latest technology radars, which were pioneered by Qantas in 2002, can give a more complete and accurate reading of a thunderstorm, but they will be certified for the A320 until next year.
'If you don't have what's called a multi skilled radar you have to tilt the radar yourself manually, you have to look down to the base of the thunderstorm to see what the intensity of the moisture and the rain is, then you make a judgment of how bad it is. It's manual, so it's possible to make a mistake, it has happened,' Mr Thomas explained.
Meanwhile, the billionaire CEO of AirAsia described missing flight QZ8501 as his 'worst nightmare' as the massive air and sea search for the plane resumed at first light on Monday. Tony Fernandes spoke of his horror over the situation after the plane lost contact with air traffic control with 155 passengers and seven crew members on board at about 6.17am local time, a short time after the pilot asked to deviate from the flight path due to 'bad weather'.
Upon arriving in Indonesia, Mr Fernandez gave a press conference to family and friends of those on board the plane and said the focus should be on the search and the families.
'We have no idea at the moment what went wrong,' Mr Fernandes, who founded the regional low-cost carrier in 2001 when it was in debt and worth just 50 cent, said on Sunday.
'Let's not speculate at the moment.'
The 50-year-old built AirAsia from a small, heavily indebted company to a huge low-cost airline after buying it for just 50 cent in 2001. He later expanded into long-hail flights with the AirAsia X brand.
Mr Fernandes later posted a tweet on his Twitter account on Monday afternoon saying: 'Keeping positive and staying strong. My heart bleeds for all the relatives of the crew and passengers. Nothing is more important to us.'
A massive search and rescue operation was launched on Sunday but was suspended for the night due to unworkable conditions. The fishing boats and official vessels that were sent out by Indonesia's national search and rescue authority, along with helicopters and Hercules aircraft from Singapore, set out again at sunrise on Monday morning.
'We have resumed the search for the missing AirAsia plane at 6.00 am (7am Singapore time). We are heading to east Belitung island,' deputy operations chief of the national search and rescue agency Tatang Zainuddin told AFP.
'We are sending out four aircraft today [Monday] to help locate the AirAsia plane. We hope we can find it soon. There will also be help from various search and rescue offices in the cities around the area,' Mr Zainuddin said.
Three planes from Singapore are expected to help in the search, plus a landing ship tank and submarine support and rescue vessel are on standby.
The Australian Defence Force deployed a RAAF AP-3C Orion Maritime Patrol Aircraft to assist on Monday.
Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin said the aircraft had 'a well-proven capability in search and rescue and carries maritime search radar coupled with infra-red and electro-optical sensors'.
The scenes of anguish were reminiscent of those in March 2014, when Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 lost contact with air traffic control several hundred miles north of Singapore. No trace of the craft has been found.
The pilot of the plane has been named as Captain Iriyanto, while the co-pilot is believed to be Frenchman Remi Emmanual Plesel. A picture of the pilot has been posted on social media by his daughter Angela Ranastianis. His nephew praised Capt Irianto as 'a very caring person'.
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