AirAsia plane 'at bottom of sea' (speculation )

The missing AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501 is
likely to be at the bottom of the sea, the head
of Indonesia's search-and-rescue agency has
said.
Bambang Soelistyo said the hypothesis was
based on the co-ordinates of the plane when
contact with it was lost.
The search for the Airbus A320-200, which
disappeared with 162 people on board on Sunday
on a flight to Singapore, has ended for a second
day.
The search area will be widened on Tuesday.

The pilots had requested a course change
because of bad weather but did not send any
distress call before the plane disappeared from
radar screens between Borneo and Sumatra.
"Based on the co-ordinates given to us and
evaluation that the estimated crash position is in
the sea, the hypothesis is the plane is at the
bottom of the sea," Bambang Soelistyo, the head
of Indonesia's search and rescue agency, told a
news conference in Jakarta.
I boarded a military aircraft at 06:00 at a base in
Jakarta and was on board for 10 hours, seven of
which were spent searching over the Java Sea
near Belitung island.
It took us about two hours to reach the area
where the authorities believe the plane was
when it lost contact with air traffic control in
Jakarta.
Our plane was flying very low - about 300-450m
(1000-1500ft) above sea level. The weather was
very clear and the waters relatively calm.
From the aircraft I could just see the water, a
small island and a few fishing boats.
The search team was trying to find wreckage or
some signal from the missing plane. They were
looking at the sea through small windows.
I did the same thing, checking the windows
every 15 minutes. But after a few hours on board
I had seen nothing.
Then at around 14:00 the search team found a
slick of oil, but the authorities weren't sure
where it had come from.
Announcing the end of the day's searching, Mr
Soelistyo said that on Tuesday the search area
would be widened to cover West Kalimantan, on
the island of Borneo, and the southern parts of
the waters off the coast of Belitung island.
Weather conditions on Monday were very good,
he said, but helicopters involved in the search
lacked the visual equipment for searching at
night.
The search would continue to focus on oil slicks
seen on Monday, Mr Soelistyo added, though it is
not clear whether they were caused by the
plane.
Some ships were still searching for the plane, he
added.
Indonesian Vice-President Jusuf Kalla said
earlier that 30 ships and 15 aircraft were taking
part in the search, and that any ships in the area
and "even fishermen" were being asked to join
in.