SURABAYA, Indonesia — CNN — Indonesia’s top rescue official says authorities believe the missing AirAsia jet is likely at the bottom of the sea, based on radar data from the plane’s last contact.
“(Because) the coordinate that was given to us and the evolution from the calculation point of the flight track is at sea, our early conjecture is that the plane is in the bottom of the sea,” said Marsdya Tni Hendry Bambang, head of Indonesia’s national search and rescue agency.
The search for missing AirAsia Flight QZ8501 resumed in Indonesia on Monday, a day after the plane disappeared in Indonesian airspace with 162 people aboard.
Several dozen family members of passengers aboard the missing flight met with airport and airline officials in a closed door briefing Monday at the airport in Surabaya, Indonesia.
Here is a time line of the events leading up the plane’s disappearance, according to Djoko Murdjatmojo, the acting director general for Air Transportation Affairs in Indonesia:
Sunday (Local time in Indonesia)
5:36 a.m. — AirAsia Flight 8501 takes off from Surabaya International Airport in Indonesia.
6:12 a.m. — Pilot asks air traffic control permission to avoid clouds by turning left and ascending to 38,000 feet.
6:16 a.m. — Flight 8501 is still visible on radar.
6:18 a.m. — The plane disappears from air traffic control’s radar. (AirAsia reports a slightly different time, 6:24 a.m., for when contact with air traffic control was lost).
7:30 a.m. (8:30 a.m. Singapore time) — This is when Flight 8501 was scheduled to land in Singapore.
7:55 a.m. (8:55 a.m. Singapore time) — Flight 8501 is officially announced as “missing.” Its last known position is in the Java Sea, between Belitung and Borneo.
