Search for missing AirAsia Flight 8501 expands off Indonesian coast

Jakarta, Dec. 29 (NsNewsWire) — Naval ships, small boats, helicopters and surveillance aircraft from four nations expanded the search Monday for a missing AirAsia jetliner in the waters off of Indonesia.

Bambang Soelistyo, the head of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency, which was leading the effort, said investigators believed the plane carrying 162 mostly Indonesian passengers had crashed into the Java Sea north of Jakarta a day earlier, reports http://www.latimes.com/

“My goal is to locate it as soon as possible,” Bambang told a news conference in Jakarta. “We’re doing the best we can.”

The search effort that began after Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 lost contact with air-traffic control during a two-hour flight to Singapore from the Indonesian city of Surabaya resumed at dawn after being halted Sunday evening due to darkness and poor visibility.

Bambang said teams searched an area comprising roughly 66,000 square miles in four sectors on Sunday, concentrating on a 250-mile-wide stretch of the Java Sea between the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo. On Monday the search expanded to the north to include the Karimata strait, which lies between northern Indonesia and Singapore, and the coasts of Belitung island and West Kalimantan province, he said.