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Indonesia says objects spotted in sea not related to lost AirAsia jet

The AirAsia airline reported that Airbus A320-200 was carrying 155 passengers, with 17 children among them, two pilots, a flight engineer and four stewards
Indonesian Vice-President Jusuf Kalla (center) TASS/EPA/MADE NAGI
Indonesian Vice-President Jusuf Kalla (center)
© TASS/EPA/MADE NAGI

SINGAPORE, December 29. /TASS/. Objects found in the Java Sea are not linked to the AirAsia plane that went missing with 162 people on board on Sunday, Indonesia's Vice-President Jusuf Kalla said.

Malaysian passenger aircraft en route from Surabaya, the second largest Indonesian city, to Singapore at around 6:12am local time requested to ascend to a higher altitude of 11,500 meters and to turn left to avoid bad weather, the acting director general for air transportation at Indonesia’s Transportation Ministry said.

Djoko Murjatmojo said local aviation authorities allowed the plane to only turn left and continue the flight at the altitude of 9,700 meters (32,000 feet) as there was another plane in the vicinity.

Shortly after, the contact was lost near the Borneo Island over the Java Sea.

The AirAsia airline reported that Airbus A320-200 was carrying 155 passengers, with 17 children among them, two pilots, a flight engineer and four stewards. Most of the passengers were from Indonesia.

This is the third air incident this year involving Malaysia, where the low-cost airline in based. The plane’s loss comes after the still-unexplained disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in March and the crash Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in mid-July in eastern Ukraine.