Hope is fading in the multinational search for missing AirAsia Flight QZ8501.
The chief of Indonesia’s national search and rescue agency now believes the missing AirAsia jet is sitting at "the bottom of the sea,” reported CNN.
"(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," Bambang Sulistyo, head of Indonesia's national search and rescue agency, told CNN reporters earlier today.
CNN correspondent Andrew Stevens warned that information regarding the location of the plane and its status has yet to be verified.
“We don’t know yet what they are using and what information they have that we don’t have to dare to say something like that.”
He continued, “Obviously, there has been a search. There was a search yesterday when the plane first disappeared and it’s been ongoing now for three or four hours today.”
Families of the 162 missing passengers are being briefed by AirAsia officials regarding the status of the aircraft.
“There is indication that the plane has crashed in this area and it is just a matter of time to find the black box… and locate the plane,” says Stevens.
The AirAsia jet lost contact early Sunday morning, after the flight crew sent a request to change course due to “bad weather conditions.”
Flight 8501 “was requesting deviation due to en route weather before communication with the aircraft was lost,” AirAsia said according to Fox News.
This is a second incident involving a Malayasian airline losing contact and disappearing this year.
The first involved the Malaysia Airlines MH370 jet that vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing back in March. The plane and its 239 passengers and crew remain missing to this day.
UPDATE Dec. 29: Air crews searching in Southeast Asia for missing AirAsia Flight QZ8501 have spotted oily spots and objects in the sea. Whether the spots or objects are connected to the missing jet is still unknown.
UPDATE Dec. 30: Indonesian search and rescue pulled bodies and wreckage from the sea off the coast of Borneo today. As of 11 a.m. EST, the navy said 40 bodies had been recovered. The plane has yet to be found.