5:30 in the morning local time bound for singapore. the jet had 162 people on board, including 18 children with a crew of seven. officials have left some ships in the water to comb the area off indonesia for that plane. officials say seven ships and two helicopters will search for the plane. heavy storms had been reported in the area just when that jet vanished. indonesian officials say the pilot requested to fly at higher altitude because of bad weather. the incident comes just ten months after air flight 370 vanished on its way to beijing with 239 people on board. joining me by skype our aviation correspondent richard quest.
board. the airasia 320 was and hour into its flight when it disappeared prom the screen. they have been searching the area of the java sea before the search was suspended because of the poor weather. airasia says flight 8501 asked for a diversion in its path due to bad weather. the pilot asked for permission to climb to 38,000 people to avoid thick cloud. no distress call is reported to have been issued by the crew. anxious friends and relatives have gathered at both surabaya and singapore airports for news of the plane. the ceo tony fernandez has gone to surabaya where many of those on board were from. the budget airline has headquarters in malaysia has never lost an airplane before but the national carrier has lost two this year.
the pilots know this. this is the current look of a private briefing. can you see ahs yala down to the south. on the edge of your screen you can see ahead and up towards singapore. it is in this area of red. this is occasional embedded thunderstorms at 53,000 feet high. in between the thunderstorms, there s down drafts. it s reasonable to assume at this point, martin taking off this first thunderstorm, at tremendous height possibly 53,000 feet maybe 55 as some reports are saying could have caused him to divert this area because this is the anvil right in front. then you get into a clear pocket where possibly we call them cold spots. we re in the down drafts occurring. then he is embedded and this is the last place of known contact.
not only indonesia to offer help but also to disseminate information to family members. let me start with this, because this is very telling, this is from the facebook page from the prime minister of singapore, offering his support to indonesia. you can tell by this picture, that s the most telling, the photos on the left side of your screen those ships being called off for today. but it s very important to have these assets ready to go at daybreak. also tweeting this our thoughts and prayers of are with all those family and friends of airasia flight 8501. tony fernandez, he s monitoring all of this him saying i am touched by the massive show of support, especially from my
don t people vote their wallets? yes. and people need to motivate their base. by pretending that they hadn t voted for president obama, alison lundergan grimes to people not wanting to campaign for them how do they think they are going to get elected if they can t motivate their base and not talk about the accomplishments of their party and this president. that s crazy. i agree with you, that is probably the most unreported. that is a scandal. beth, thank you very much. ahead, we ll keep you updated on the missing flight from indonesia to singapore stay tuned.