Indonesia halts search for missing AirAsia plane as night falls

An Indonesia AirAsia Airbus carrying 162 people - 155 passengers, two pilots, four flight attendants and one engineer, which took off from the city of Surabaya in Indonesia and bound for Singapore, lost contact with air traffic control about two hours after take-off, while flying over the Java Sea.

The passengers included 138 adults, 16 children and one infant according to a statement released by AirAsia following the disappearance of the plane.

Indonesia's acting director general of transportation, said the last contact between pilot and the air traffic control was at 6.13 a.m. on Saturday) “when the pilot requested permission to deviate from its submitted flight plan route due to weather condition."

There was vigorous thunderstorm at the time. It's been hours now since the plane went missing and there has been no update on the plane's whereabouts.



 AirAsia has since released a statement about the people on board. They said the people on board included 156 Indonesians, three South Koreans, one French person, one Malaysian and one Singaporean. But Britain has said one of their citizens was on board.

Search and Rescue is underway for Flight QZ8501

Below are photos of relatives of passengers at Surabaya airport, crying and confused...