The plane had two pilots, five cabin crew and 155 passengers, including 16 children and one infant,

An airport official checks a map of Indonesia at the crisis centre set up by local authority for the missing AirAsia fFight 8501, at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia. (AP / Trisnadi)
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- In the third air incident connected to Malaysia this year, an AirAsia oahu apartment rentals plane with 162 people on board went missing on Sunday while flying over the Java Sea after taking off from a provincial city in Indonesia for Singapore.
AirAsia, a regional low-cost carrier founded in 2001 by Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes, said in a statement that the missing Airbus A320-200 was on the submitted flight plan route. However, it had requested deviation due to weather before communication with the aircraft was lost while it was still under the control of the Indonesian Air Traffic Control.
We don't dare to presume what has happened except that it has lost contact. Djoko Murjatmodjo, Indonesia's acting director general of transportation, told reporters. He said the last communication between the pilot and air traffic control was at 6.13 a.m. (2313 GMT Saturday) oahu apartment rentals when the pilot asked to avoid clouds by turning left and going higher to 34,000 feet.
The contact was lost about 42 minutes after the single-aisle, twin-engine jetliner took off from Surabaya airport, Hadi Mustofa, an official of the transportation ministry told Indonesia's MetroTV. It was about an hour before it was scheduled to land in Singapore at 0030 GMT.
The plane had two pilots, five cabin crew and 155 passengers, including 16 children and one infant, AirAsia Indonesia said in a statement. Indonesian officials had earlier said there were 161 people on board.
Minister of Transportation Ignasius Jonan told reporters in Surabaya that the position was believed to be near the coast line. He said search and rescue efforts now involved the Indonesian army, the national Search and Rescue Agency as well as Singapore and Malaysia. But that the effort will focus on the area around Belitung island.
The Malaysia-based AirAsia, which has dominated cheap travel in the region for years, flies short routes of just a few hours, connecting large cities oahu apartment rentals of Southeast Asia. However, recently it has tried to expand into long-distance flying through its sister airline AirAsia X. AirAsia oahu apartment rentals Malaysia owns 49 percent of its subsidiary, AirAsia Indonesia.
He stirred controversy earlier this year after incorrectly tweeting that Malaysia Airlines flight 370, now synonymous with one of aviation's enduring mysteries, had landed safely. The wide-bodied Boeing 777, went missing soon after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8. It remains missing until this day with 239 people.
Another oahu apartment rentals Malaysia Airlines flight, also a Boeing 777, was shot down over rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine while on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17. A total of 298 people on board were killed.
William Waldock, an expert on air crash search and rescue with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, cautioned against drawing oahu apartment rentals comparisons to the disappearance of Malaysia flight 370.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, expressed solidarity with AirAsia. In a tweet he said. Very sad to hear that AirAsia Indonesia QZ8501 is missing. My thoughts are with the families. Malaysia stands ready to help.
In this May 9, 2014 photo, an AirAsia A320-200 plane takes off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 in Sepang, Malaysia. The plane in this photo is the same model but not the one which went missing in Indonesia. (AP / Joshua Paul)