Searching for missing plane underway in Indonesia

Photo taken on Dec 28, 2014 shows local television broadcasting a press conference held at Soekarno-Hatta airport in Jakarta, Indonesia. An Air Asia jetliner lost contact with ground control on Sunday after takeoff from Indonesia on the way to Singapore, and authorities had launched a search and rescue operation. (Xinhua/He Changshan)

Indonesia are deploying planes and ships to look for Air Asia plane with 161 people on board that lost contact at 06:17 pm Jakarta time Sunday, official said in Jakarta.

Director General of Air Transport of Indonesian Transport Ministry Djoko Murjatmodjo told a press conference at the main airport in Jakarta that the plane went missing after the pilot requested to divert from its route because of cloud, and raise the height of the flight to 32,000 feet.

But, he did not say whether the plane had crashed or had an accident.

The director said that the plane went missing in the waters between Tanjung Pandan of Bangka Balitung province and Pontianak city of West Kalimantan province.

Djoko said that should the plane must have run out its fuel if it keeps flying till now.

AirAsia also confirmed that the pilot of flight QZ8501 had requested "deviation" from its flight plan because of bad weather.

"The aircraft...was requesting deviation due to en route weather," the Malaysia-based carrier said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.

"Communication with the aircraft was lost while it was still under the control of the Indonesian Air Traffic Control," it added.

The incident comes at the end of a disastrous year for Malaysian aviation. Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, with 239 people on board, disappeared in March after diverting from its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing course. No trade of the jetliner has been found despite tremendous search efforts.

Months later MH 17 went down in July in the war-born eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 on board.