Search teams looking for missing Air Asia flight QZ8501 have found several objects and at least 40 bodies from the Airbus A320-200 aircraft.
The Air Asia flight carrying 162 passengers and crew onboard was flying from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore when it went missing about 50 minutes after take-off on Sunday morning.
Bambang Soelistyo, head of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency, confirmed today that the debris was from flight QZ8501. He added that a “large shadow” seen beneath the water could be the main part of the aircraft on the sea bed.
Ships with more sophisticated technology have been sent to the area in the Java Sea to find out if larger parts of the aircraft are submerged below the debris.
Air traffic control lost contact with flight QZ8501 shortly after the pilot had asked to climb to 38,000 feet to avoid heavy storm clouds over the Java Sea.
Indonesian authorities admitted yesterday that the aircraft was likely to be “at bottom of the sea”.
The incident is the third to affect Malaysia-based airlines this year after Malaysian Airlines lost flights MH370 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March and MH17 crashed in eastern Ukraine in July.
Air Asia chief executive Tony Fernandes said: “My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ8501. On behalf of Air Asia, my condolences to all. Words cannot express how sorry I am.”