Possible emergency slide, plane door from missing AirAsia jet spotted

This aerial view taken from an Indonesian search and rescue aircraft over the Java Sea shows floating debris spotted in the same area as other items being investigated by Indonesian authorities as possible objects from missing AirAsia flight QZ8501. – AFP pic, December 30, 2014.

Items resembling an emergency slide, plane door and other objects were spotted during an aerial search today for missing AirAsia flight QZ8501, Indonesian officials said.

"We spotted about 10 big objects and many more small white-coloured objects which we could not photograph," Indonesian air force official Agus Dwi Putranto told a press conference.

"The position is 10 kilometres from the location the plane was last captured by radar."

He displayed 10 photos of objects resembling a plane door, emergency slide, and a square box-like object.

"It is not really clear... it could be the wall of the plane or the door of the plane," he said.

"Let's pray that those objects are what we are really trying to find," he said in Pangkalan Bun in Central Kalimantan on the island of Borneo.

An AFP photographer on the same flight that spotted the debris said he had seen objects in the sea resembling a life raft, life jackets and long orange tubes.

Indonesian television showed footage of two relatively large objects, one orange and one grey or brown, floating in the Java Sea.

The largest appeared to be several metres in length.

Meanwhile, Djoko Murjatmodjo, acting director general of air transportation at the transportation ministry said red and white debris had been sighted off Indonesia's Kalimantan coast.

"The debris is red and white," Djoko told reporters. "We are checking if it's debris from the aircraft. It's probably from the body of the aircraft."

An Airbus A320-200 carrying 162 people and operated by Indonesia AirAsia disappeared in poor weather on Sunday morning during a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

"Hopefully we will find something definite because I haven't received anything else," an Air Force official told Indonesia's MetroTV referring to the reported debris. "Other aircraft are still carrying out searches." – Agencies

- TMI