SURABAYA, Indonesia — More planes will be in the air and more ships on the sea Tuesday hunting for AirAsia Flight 8501 in a widening search off Indonesia that has dragged into a third day without any solid leads.
At least 30 ships, 15 aircraft and seven helicopters were looking for the jet carrying 162 people, said Indonesia’s Search and Rescue Agency chief, Henry Bambang Soelistyo. Most of the craft were Indonesian, but Singapore, Malaysia and Australia contributed to the effort. Aircraft from Thailand planned to join Tuesday’s search.
He said the search area would be expanded to land areas, with four military helicopters dispatched just after sunrise near Pangkalan Bun on the western part of Borneo and from smaller islands of Bangka and Belitung.
“Until now, we have not yet found any signal or indication of the plane’s whereabouts,” Soelistyo said, adding that fishermen from Belitung were helping.
The U.S. Navy is also joining the search. It said the USS Sampson, a destroyer, which was already on an independent deployment in the Western Pacific, will arrive in the area Tuesday. China announced that a navy frigate already on patrol in the South China Sea and aircraft will help in the search.
The longer the search goes without turning up wreckage or any hint of what happened to plane, the more the incident will evoke memories of the unexplained disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in March.
The AirAsia pilots had been worried about the weather and had sought permission to climb above threatening clouds. Air traffic control couldn’t say yes immediately — there was no room. Six other airliners were crowding the airspace, forcing Flight 8501 to remain at a lower altitude.
Minutes later, the jet was gone from the radar without issuing a distress signal. The plane is believed to have crashed into Indonesia’s Java Sea, but broad aerial surveys so far have turned up no firm evidence of the missing Airbus A320-200.
