First AirAsia bodies arrive as bad weather hampers recovery

SURABAYA, Indonesia - Soldiers acting as pall bearers Wednesday carried coffins containing the first two bodies from AirAsia Flight QZ8501 into Indonesia's Surabaya airport, from which the ill-fated plane departed, as sombre relatives gave their DNA to help identify loved ones.

The bodies were taken from an air force plane to a military ambulance to be transported to a hospital for examination and identification -- but many exhausted families were left waiting for news as bad weather hampered search efforts.

Officials had hoped to recover most of the bodies but rough conditions made it difficult for helicopters to fly over the area in the Java Sea where several corpses and debris from the Airbus A320-200 were found a day earlier.

After taking off on Sunday in Surabaya, Indonesia's second-biggest city, the plane was destined for Singapore.

But it was never to arrive, and on Wednesday the city was also the venue for drained and emotional relatives of the 162 people on board to gather at a crisis centre to hand over documents and medical records.

Among them was Hadi Widjaja, 60, who was preparing a Muslim funeral for his son Andreas and daughter-in-law Enny Wahyuni.

"I am anxious to know if the rescuers have found their bodies. The president has said that they will do the best they can to find them," Widjaja told AFP.

"But if they really cannot find them, I will scatter flowers in the sea here as a way to say goodbye."

Relatives and residents gathered in Surabaya for a candlelit vigil in the hours before midnight while in Jakarta New Year festivities started solemnly with a prayer for the victims.

Police in Surabaya said they had taken DNA from 30 immediate family members to assist with the identification of bodies at a local hospital, to which the crisis centre is also being shifted.

Seven bodies have been recovered from the sea so far, including a female in a flight attendant's uniform, officials said, and all of them were now expected to reach Surabaya Thursday.

Storms delayed the start of operations on Wednesday and helicopters were later forced to return to the base in Pangkalan Bun, the town with the nearest airstrip to the crash site.

- 'We turned back' -

"For the safety reasons, we turned back," helicopter pilot Tatang Onne Setiawan told AFP.

"Besides the evacuation of the bodies, we also planned to search for bigger parts of the plane."

Boat-based teams called off the search for bodies as night fell, but ships with sonar equipment were continuing to look for the plane's fuselage.

AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes denied reports that sonar images had located the aircraft on the seabed.

"There is no sonar, nothing, some visual identification but nothing confirmed," he told reporters.

He said however that the search team was "feeling more comfortable. They are beginning to know where it is".

During Tuesday's searches, an air force plane saw a "shadow" on the seabed believed to be the missing plane, where search efforts have since been concentrated.

Debris found from the aircraft, which crashed into the Java Sea southwest of the island of Borneo during a storm, included an exit door and several suitcases.

"There were snacks, instant porridge, and three umbrellas," commander of the Bung Tomo warship, Colonel Yayan, told a local news channel, referring to the 28 items that had been retrieved.

According to search and rescue officials AFP spoke with, none of the victims found so far was wearing a lifejacket.

The hunt is now on for the plane's black boxes, which are key to determining the cause of the crash.

"We have concerns to secure the flight recorders, believed to be with parts of the plane we haven't found," said National Search and Rescue Agency chief Bambang Soelistyo.

Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch has sent an investigator carrying "specialist technical equipment" that can help to locate flight recorders.

Accompanying Singaporean experts, the investigator is travelling to the site on an Indonesian naval vessel, according to the British embassy in Jakarta.

Before take-off the pilot of QZ8501 had asked for permission to fly at a higher altitude to avoid the storm, but his request was not approved due to other planes above him on the popular route, according to AirNav, Indonesia's air traffic control.

In his last communication, the pilot said he wanted to change course to avoid the menacing storm system. Then all contact was lost, about 40 minutes after the plane had taken off.

- International search effort -

The missing plane was operated by AirAsia Indonesia, a unit of Malaysia-based AirAsia, which had previously earned a solid safety record.

Of the 162 passengers and crew on board Flight QZ8501, 155 were Indonesian.

President Joko Widodo met the victims' families in Surabaya on Tuesday and promised "a massive search" effort, with priority given to recovering bodies of the passengers and crew.

The United States, Australia, Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia are among the countries helping in the search effort, which comes at the end of an awful year for Malaysian air travel.

After the disappearance of Flight MH370 in March, en route from from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew, another Malaysia Airlines flight -- MH17 -- was shot down over Ukraine in July, killing all 298 on board.

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Indonesia believes it has found AirAsia plane on sea bed

SURABAYA, Indonesia/JAKARTA - Indonesian rescuers believe they have found the wreck of a crashed AirAsia plane on the ocean floor off Borneo, after sonar detected a large, dark object beneath waters where debris and bodies were found floating.

Ships and planes had been scouring the Java Sea for Flight QZ8501 since Sunday, when it lost contact during bad weather about 40 minutes into its flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

Indonesian rescuers have recovered various bits of debris, including luggage, and seven bodies floating in shallow waters.

"It's about 30 to 50 metres (100 to 165 feet) underwater," Hernanto, head of the search and rescue agency in Surabaya, said of the object on the sea bed.

Authorities in Surabaya were making preparations to receive and identify bodies, including arranging 130 ambulances to take victims to a police hospital and collecting DNA from relatives.

"We are praying it is the plane so the evacuation can be done quickly," Hernanto said.

Most of the people on board were Indonesians. No survivors have been found.

Officials said waves two to three metres (six to nine feet) high and winds were hampering the hunt for wreckage and preventing divers from searching the crash zone.

Among the bodies found on Wednesday was a flight attendant.

The fully clothed bodies could indicate the Airbus A320-200 was intact when it hit the water and support a theory that it suffered an aerodynamic stall.

"The fact that the debris appears fairly contained suggests the aircraft broke up when it hit the water, rather than in the air," said Neil Hansford, a former pilot and chairman of consultancy firm Strategic Aviation Solutions.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo said his priority was retrieving the bodies.

"I feel a deep loss over this disaster and pray for the families to be given fortitude and strength," Widodo said in Surabaya on Tuesday after grim images of the scene in the Java Sea were broadcast on television.

Widodo said AirAsia would pay an immediate advance of money to relatives, many of whom collapsed in grief when they saw the television pictures from the search.

AirAsia Chief Executive Tony Fernandes has described the crash as his "worst nightmare".

About 30 ships and 21 aircraft from Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and the United States have been involved in the search.

Singapore said it was sending two underwater beacon detectors to try to pick up pings from the black boxes, which contain cockpit voice and flight data recorders.

NO DISTRESS CALL

The plane, which did not issue a distress signal, disappeared after its pilot failed to get permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather because of heavy air traffic.

It was travelling at 32,000 feet (9,753 metres) and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet. When air traffic controllers granted permission for a rise to 34,000 feet a few minutes later, they received no response.

Online discussion among pilots has centred on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled.

Investigators are focusing initially on whether the crew took too long to request permission to climb, or could have ascended on their own initiative earlier, said a source close to the inquiry, adding that poor weather could have played a part as well.

A Qantas pilot with 25 years of experience flying in the region said the discovery of the debris field relatively close to the last known radar plot of the plane pointed to an aerodynamic stall. One possibility is that the plane's instruments iced up, giving the pilots inaccurate readings.

The Indonesian captain, former air force fighter pilot with 6,100 flying hours under his belt, was experienced and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, said the airline, which is 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia.

Three airline disasters involving Malaysian-affiliated carriers in less than a year have dented confidence in the country's aviation industry and spooked travellers.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing in March on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew and has not been found. On July 17, the same airline's Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

On board Flight QZ8501 were 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia and Britain. The co-pilot was French.

The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002.

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Why AirAsia has little margin for error in crisis over missing jet

KUALA LUMPUR/SINGAPORE - As AirAsia Bhd grapples with its first airliner disaster since its founding a dozen years ago, Asia's biggest budget carrier will have little margin for error given tough competition and thin profits in the sector.

Even before an Indonesia AirAsia flight went missing on Sunday night with 162 on board, presumed to have crashed off the Indonesian coast, affiliates in Thailand and the Philippines as well as its long-haul unit were posting losses while its Indonesian unit eked out only a tiny profit in the latest quarter.

Several analysts believe the incident could deter some passengers from using the airline, at least in the short term, with an outsized impact on its bottom line.

"Given the thin margin nature of the airline business, our calculations suggest that a 1 percent decline in IAA (Indonesia AirAsia), Malaysia AirAsia and Thai AirAsia's 2015 passenger traffic will result in a 13 percent reduction to AirAsia's 2015 net profit," CIMB analysts Raymond Yap and Jian Bo Gan said in a report.

The group is locked in fierce competition with regional rivals such as Malaysian Airline System Bhd, Qantas unit Jetstar, Indonesia's Lion Air and subsidiaries of Singapore Airlines.

With the AirAsia livery displayed prominently on the missing aircraft, the CIMB analysts expected the AirAsia group's Malaysian and Thai carriers would also be affected by the incident.

"But unless there is a second incident in the very near future, the AirAsia group's strong safety track record and very attractive commercial offerings may help limit the contagion and ensure a speedier demand recovery," they added.

Both the Indonesian and Malaysian aviation sectors have come under scrutiny after a series of accidents which have spooked air travellers and spurred action by safety authorities.

Indonesia said it would review the Indonesian operations of AirAsia to improve safety. Indonesia AirAsia is 49 percent owned by AirAsia, with local investors holding the rest.

SHARES FALL

Investors concerned about the incident's impact sold shares of the company and its affiliates on Monday, with AirAsia ending down 8.5 percent at its lowest close in a month on volume of 103 million shares, 10 times the average volume. During the session the shares had fallen as much as 12.9 percent.

Still, they are up 22 percent for the year so far, compared with a 5 percent fall in the Kuala Lumpur benchmark index.

Shares in Asia Aviation PCL, the holding company for Thai AirAsia in which the AirAsia group owns 45 percent, fell 2.3 percent on Monday.

Analysts believe the incident could prevent the airline from keeping up its yields, or average revenue per passenger for every kilometre flown.

"I was expecting yields to at least maintain on a year-on-year basis in 2015, but now I'm expecting them to decline by up to five percent," said Daniel Wong, analyst at Kuala Lumpur-based Hong Leong Investment Bank. He downgraded his rating on AirAsia to a "trading sell" from a "buy".

The direct impact on AirAsia from the Indonesia unit will be limited, analysts said, because even before the accident the unit was not contributing to AirAsia's bottom line and had not been expected do so for at least several quarters, as it makes up for unrecognised losses.

AirAsia Bhd's third-quarter profit tumbled 85 percent in July-September on rising costs, while affiliated long-haul carrier AirAsia X reported a fourth consecutive quarterly loss.

AirAsia also has a venture in India that launched flights in June and aims to expand. In July, it announced plans for a low-cost airline with Japan's biggest online retailer, Rakuten and other companies, marking its second attempt to tap the Japan market.

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Searchers spot oil slicks in sea on missing AirAsia plane's path

JAKARTA -- The Indonesian air force said Monday rescuers and fishermen have spotted oil slicks in a sea area where a jetliner belonging to the Indonesian affiliate of Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia Bhd. went missing Sunday.

Air Force Spokesman Vice Marshall Hadi Tjahjanto told Kyodo News they "visually" spotted the oil slicks about 105 nautical miles east of Belitung Island off the eastern coast of Sumatra Island.

"We haven't been able to confirm, however, whether it was the fuel of the AirAsia aircraft," Hadi said.

He also said Indonesian warships had checked reports from an Australian plane and an Australian ship helping to search for the missing plane that they spotted some objects in the sea between Belitung and Borneo Island.

"We found nothing," the military officer said.

Flight QZ8501, which took off from Surabaya at 5:36 a.m. Sunday, was declared missing at 7:55 a.m. The pilot last made contact with air traffic control at 6:12 a.m. and no distress signal was sent.

Search efforts had resumed early Monday for the jetliner that went missing over the Java Sea while heading from Surabaya, capital of Indonesia's East Java Province, to Singapore with 162 people aboard.

National Search and Rescue Agency Chief Vice Marshall Bambang Soelistyo told an earlier press conference that the search efforts were mostly focused on the Bangka Belitung Islands and Singkep Island, both off the western coast of Sumatra Island, Straits Karimata, between Sumatra and Borneo Island, and the western part of Borneo.

Sixteen vessels, five warships, a minesweeping ship and dozens of rigid boats, as well as five planes and two Super Puma helicopters from various institutions including the military were dispatched to the area, Soelistyo said.

Security clearances have also been issued for Singapore and Malaysia to send their vessels and Hercules planes there, he added.

Flight QZ8501, an Airbus A320-200, had been scheduled to arrive in Singapore at 8:30 a.m. Sunday Singapore time, which is one hour ahead of Surabaya time.

Shortly before communication was lost, the pilot had requested to fly at a higher altitude to avoid bad weather.

When radar contact was lost, the plane was flying between the city of Pontianak in West Kalimantan Province on Borneo, about 1,180 kilometers of Surabaya, and Tanjung Pandan in Bangka-Belitung Islands Province, near Sumatra, about 400 km away.

"If the plane had crashed on land, it would be easier to find than if it had plunged under the water," Soelistyo said.

He said the plane's last coordinates at the time when it lost contact with air traffic control, however, indicate it might have crashed into the sea.

"And if it plunged into the sea, it might be at the bottom of the sea," he added.

According to the air force officer, if it did crash into the sea and is resting on the bottom, Indonesia does not have the means to retrieve it.

"That's why, through our foreign minister, we have contacted other countries -- the United Kingdom, France and the United States, which have so far offered help -- to borrow locators," he said.

As rainy season is under way in Indonesia, another challenge the rescuers are facing now is the weather, which is bad in some areas, particularly at sea.

The 155 passengers consist of 138 adults, 16 children and one infant.

By nationality, 149 of the passengers are Indonesian, with the six others being a Singaporean, a Malaysian, a Briton and three South Koreans, the statement said. The plane had an Indonesian captain, a French co-pilot and five cabin members.

According to the airline, the plane underwent a scheduled maintenance Nov. 16 and the pilot had a total of 6,100 flying hours and the first officer 2,275 flying hours.

Having also affiliates in the Philippines and Thailand, AirAsia Group is the largest low-cost carrier in Asia in terms of fleet size and the number of passengers carried.

The airline has been named the World's Best Low Cost Airline in the annual World Airline Survey by Skytrax for five consecutive years from 2009-2013 and the World's Leading Low Cost Airline at the 2013 World Travel Awards.

AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes told reporters in Jakarta on Monday the group has carried 220 million passengers in 13 years and had no fatalities.

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Flamboyant AirAsia boss confronts first major crisis

Malaysian mogul Tony Fernandes, who transformed a floundering carrier into Asia's biggest budget airline, faces his first major crisis after an AirAsia plane went missing Sunday with 162 people on board.

AirAsia is credited with starting a revolution in the skies of Southeast Asia and has seen spectacular growth under Fernandes' low-cost, low-overheads model despite intense competition.

The ebullient tycoon is one of Asia's most visible entrepreneurs, carving out an image that has seen him frequently compared to colorful Virgin Group chairman Richard Branson.

Fernandes maintained an image of calm Sunday even as his company plunged into its first major crisis after an AirAsia passenger jet went missing in bad weather en route from Indonesia to Singapore.

"Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers. We must stay strong," he tweeted as he left for Surabaya, where most of the passengers are from. "My only thought (sic) are with the passengers and my crew."

This incident caps a disastrous year for Malaysian aviation which saw beleaguered rival Malaysia Airlines suffer two air tragedies in rapid succession.

Defying naysayers

A former record industry executive who acquired the then-failing airline in 2001, Fernandes is ranked 28th on the Forbes list of Malaysia's richest with an estimated net worth of $650 million.

The tycoon, a flamboyant spirit in Asia's staid business world who favors blue jeans and caps over power suits, has made a habit of defying naysayers.

He took over loss-making AirAsia shortly after the September 11 attacks in the United States sent the global aviation industry into a tailspin, and was given little chance of succeeding.

He bought the airline, its two aircraft, and 40 million ringgit ($13.4 million) in debt for the token sum of one ringgit, mortgaging his house to pour money into the carrier.

But with his motto "Now everyone can fly," he turned it into a growing force in the aviation industry, with profits mounting and its route system expanding worldwide.

Fernandes, who is of Indian-Portuguese descent and married with two children, struck a deal with F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone in 2011 for a majority stake in Premiership football team Queens Park Rangers.

Entrepreneurial spirit
Endau Analytics aviation analyst Shukor Yusof said his entrepreneurial spirit would survive Sunday's apparent tragedy.

"This incident will not dampen Fernandes' business spirit. This is such an unfortunate incident. AirAsia remains a strong budget carrier. I think the people will rally behind AirAsia," he told AFP.

The airline, which now has more than 120 A320s and is one of the biggest customers for the European aircraft maker Airbus, is expecting nearly 360 new aircraft to be delivered by 2026.

AirAsia, which has some of the lowest unit costs in the world, has raked in business awards and accolades over the years, while expanding aggressively.

In 2013 it was ranked as Asia and the world’s best low-cost airline for the fifth time in a row.

After Sunday's apparent disaster, AirAsia swiftly replaced its distinctive bright red logo on its social media pages with a grey background.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared on a regular flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March with 239 passengers and crew, and in July, MH17 was shot down over troubled Ukraine killing all 298 on board.

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No Filipino on missing AirAsia flight - CAAP

MANILA - The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) confirmed that there were no Filipinos listed on the AirAsia flight that has gone missing on Sunday morning.

In a statement, CAAP also said A320-200 flight QZ8501 did not pass through the Philippines’ flight information region (FIR).

“According to the CAAP operation rescue and coordinating center, the flight path of the said flight is far away from Philippine FIR and no record of such pass thru the Philippine air space today,” the agency said.

The AirAsia plane went missing en route to Singapore from Indonesia. Air traffic controllers lost contact with the flight less than an hour after it left the Juanda international airport.

Air Asia said the pilot of flight QZ8501 had requested "deviation" from the its flight plan because of bad weather.

"The aircraft... was requesting deviation due to enroute weather," the Malaysia-based carrier said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.
"Communication with the aircraft was lost while it was still under the control of the Indonesian Air Traffic Control (ATC)." – with Agence Franc Presse

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AirAsia flight from Indonesia to Singapore missing

Flight QZ 8501, an Airbus 320-200, lost contact with the Jakarta air traffic control tower at 6:17 a.m., Indonesian Transport Ministry official Hadi Mustofa told media.

It had 155 passengers and crew on board, another Indonesian Transport official said.

Kuala Lumpur-based AirAsia confirmed its flight had lost contact with air traffic control and said a search-and-rescue operation had been launched.

Mustofa said the plane had asked for an unusual route before it lost contact.

Indonesian media said 149 Indonesians, three people from Korea, and one each from Singapore, Britain and Malaysia were on board.

The flight had been due in Singapore at 8:30 a.m. Singapore time. The Singapore airport said on its website the status of the flight was "delayed".

The incident comes at the end of a disastrous year for Malaysia's airlines.

National flag carrier Malaysia Airlines lost two aircraft this year. Its flight MH370 went missing on March 8 on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board.

On July 17, Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

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Air Algerie loses contact with plane over west Africa

ALGIERS  - Air Algerie said it lost contact with one of its passenger aircraft nearly an hour after takeoff from Burkina Faso on Thursday bound for Algiers.

A company source told AFP that the missing aircraft was a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 and that some 110 people of various nationalities are listed as being on board the flight.

The source said contact with the aircraft was lost while it was still in Malian airspace approaching the border with Algeria.

Despite international military intervention still under way, the situation remains unstable in northern Mali, which was seized by jihadist groups for several months in 2012.

On July 17, the Bamako government and armed groups from northern Mali launched tough talks in Algiers aimed at securing an elusive peace deal, and with parts of the country still mired in conflict.

"The plane was not far from the Algerian frontier when the crew was asked to make a detour because of poor visibility and to prevent the risk of collision with another aircraft on the Algiers-Bamako route," the Air Algerie source said.

"Contact was lost after the change of course."

The airline announced that the plane had gone missing in a brief statement carried by national news agency APS.

"Air navigation services have lost contact with an Air Algerie plane Thursday flying from Ouagadougou to Algiers, 50 minutes after takeoff," the statement said.

It added that the company initiated an "emergency plan" in the search for flight AH5017, which flies the four-hour passenger route four times a week.

One of Algeria's worst air disasters occurred in February this year, when a C-130 military aircraft carrying 78 people crashed in poor weather in the mountainous northeast, killing more than 70 people.

The plane was flying from the desert garrison town of Tamanrasset in Algeria's deep south to Constantine, 320 kilometres (200 miles) east of Algiers.

Tamanrasset was the site of the country's worst ever civilian air disaster, in March 2003.

In that accident, all but one of 103 people on board were killed when an Air Algerie passenger plane crashed on takeoff after one of its engines caught fire.

The sole survivor, a young Algerian soldier, was critically injured.

In December 2012, two Algerian military jets on a routine training mission collided in mid-air near Tlemcen in the northwest, killing both pilots.

A month earlier, a twin-turboprop CASA C-295 military transport aircraft, which was carrying a cargo of paper for the printing of banknotes in Algeria, crashed in southern France.

The five soldiers and one central bank representative on board were all killed.

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Anwar 'disgusted' by speculation over missing plane's pilot

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim condemned on Tuesday speculation that the captain of a missing Malaysian airliner -- a member of his party and a distant relative -- may have had political motives to sabotage the plane.

Describing Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah as a "decent man", Anwar said he was "disgusted" by what he saw as an attempt to smear the pilot and somehow implicate the opposition leadership in the March 8 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein blamed the speculation on foreign media reports and insisted that the search for the missing plane was "above politics."

The investigative spotlight has focused on Zaharie and his co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, since it became increasingly clear that the plane was deliberately diverted from its intended flight path to Beijing by someone on board.

Multiple media reports have noted Zaharie, 53, was an active member of Anwar's Parti Keadilan Rakyat (People's Justice Party), and some have suggested he might have sabotaged the flight as an act of political revenge.

In a highly controversial case, Anwar was convicted of sodomy -- illegal in Muslim Malaysia -- just hours before MH370 took off. He was sentenced to five years in jail but is free pending an appeal.

A Keadilan party official Tuesday confirmed press reports that Zaharie was actually a "distant relative" of Anwar's daughter-in-law.

"Is it a crime for anyone to be a member of Keadilan? To me it is an attempt to deflect the government's incompetence," Anwar told AFP.

"I of course did not take the news reports seriously but I am speaking out because I sympathise with the pilot and his family," he said.

"The mysterious disappearance of MH370 reflects not only an incompetent regime ruling the country but an irresponsible government," Anwar added.

The Malaysian authorities have had to defend themselves against repeated accusations that they withheld key information during the early stages of the search for the missing aircraft.

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