AirAsia mourns with grey logo after plane goes missing

JAKARTA: AirAsia today changed its bright fiery red logo to grey on its Twitter and Facebook pages after its aircraft, carrying 162 people, went missing en route from Indonesia to Singapore.

AirAsia Flight QZ8501 with 155 passengers on board -- including one British, one Malaysian, one Singaporean, three Koreans, -- and seven crew members lost contact with air traffic control at 0724 local time Indonesia (0454 IST).

Sixteen children and one infant were among the passengers on board the AirAsia Airbus A320-200 that today went missing on the flight from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore.

AirAsia mourned the incident by changing the colour of its logo from fiery red to grey, Strait Times reported.

"AirAsia changed its logo colour to grey from red on its Facebook pages after #QZ8501 went missing," the budget carrier said in its Twitter account.

At a press conference this morning, Indonesian officials said the plane was several hours past the time when its fuel would have been exhausted.

A statement on AirAsia's Facebook page said: "AirAsia Indonesia regrets to confirm that flight QZ8501 from Surabaya to Singapore has lost contact with air traffic control at 0724hrs this morning."