A missing AirAsia jet carrying 162 people could be at the bottom of the sea after it was presumed to have crashed off the Indonesian coast, an official said yesterday, as countries around Asia sent ships and planes to help in the search.

The Indonesian AirAsia plane, an Airbus A320-200, disappeared after its pilot failed to get permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather during a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore on Sunday.

Flight QZ8501 did not issue a distress signal and disappeared over the Java Sea five minutes after requesting the change of course, which was refused because of heavy air traffic, officials said.

“Based on our coordinates, we expect it is in the sea, so for now we think it is on the sea floor,” Soelistyo, head of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, told reporters when asked about the missing plane’s likely location.

A senior Indonesian civil aviation source said that authorities had the flight’s radar data and were waiting for search and rescue teams to find debris before they started their investigation into the cause.

Transport Minister Ignasius Jonan said the search was focused on an area of 70 square nautical miles between the island of Belitung, off Sumatra, and Borneo island. He said the sea there was only 50 to 100 metres deep, which would be a help in finding the plane. Ships could hunt around the clock, but aircraft were expected to suspend operations at dusk.

Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) personnel surveying the waters on board a C-130 Hercules during a search and locate operation for the missing AirAsia QZ8501 aircraft over an undisclosed search area yesterday. Photo: Reuters

Air force spokesman Hadi Tjahjanto said searchers were checking a report of an oil slick off Belitung. They had picked up an emergency locator signal off the south of Borneo but no subsequent signal was found, he said.

Pilot was not granted permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather

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.

Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, visiting relatives of people on the flight in Surabaya, told reporters the search by 30 ships and 15 aircraft, was being hampered by bad weather. Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea have sent ships and aircraft to join the search. China’s Defence Ministry said it had sent a warship to the South China Sea and planes “have begun prepar­atory work” for search operations.

Indonesia has accepted offers of help from the United States, Britain and France. Flight QZ8501 was travelling at 32,000 feet and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid clouds. Permission was not given at the time due to traffic in the area. Five minutes later, at 6.17am on Sunday, the plane lost contact with air traffic control, transport officials said.

Data from Flightradar24.com, which tracks airline flights in real time, showed several nearby aircraft were at altitudes ranging from 34,000 to 36,000 feet at the time, levels not unusual for cruising aircraft.

Pilots and aviation experts said thunderstorms, and requests to gain altitude to avoid them, were not unusual in that area.

“The airplane’s performance is directly related to the temperature outside and increasing altitude can lead to freezing of the static radar, giving pilots an erroneous radar reading,” said a Qantas Airways pilot with 25 years’ experience flying in the region. The resulting danger is that pilots take incorrect action to control the aircraft, said the pilot, who requested anonymity.

Online discussions among pilots centred on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the missing plane was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow in such weather conditions.

“At that altitude, that speed is exceedingly dangerous,” Sydney-based aviation expert Geoff Thomas told Reuters.

“At that altitude, the thin air, the wings won’t support the aircraft at that speed and you get an aero­dynamic stall.”