AirAsia plane crash: Singapore sends fourth naval rescue vessel

Singapore Tuesday sent its fourth naval vessel to help in the ongoing search and rescue operations for the AirAsia flight QZ8501, which crashed into the sea Sunday while flying from Indonesia to Singapore.

The support and rescue vessel MV Swift Rescue is equipped with sensors and sonars to detect signals from the plane's black box, Xinhua reported.

The Singapore Armed Forces "will do all it can to assist Indonesia in this very difficult time. We offer our deepest sympathies to families of the passengers and crew," Singapore's Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said on Facebook.

The vessel also carries an unmanned submersible that can be remotely operated to search for objects in the sea. Thirty-five navy personnel were part of the mission.

It will take about a day for the vessel to reach its destination and another 20 hours or so if it is to be deployed to the area where the plane's debris was found.

The RSS Persistence, a Singaporean landing ship tank with 123 personnel onboard, also arrived at the search area about 700 km southeast of Singapore. It carries two Super Puma helicopters.

The corvette RSS Valour and the frigate RSS Supreme are also on their way to support the search and rescue operations.

Singapore's air force earlier sent two C-130 aircrafts to assist the search. The transport ministry's Air Accident Investigation Bureau specialists will depart for the search area Wednesday morning.

The Airbus A320-200 aircraft with 155 passengers and seven crew members onboard went missing soon after taking off from Surabaya in Indonesia's East Java province early Sunday morning on its way to Singapore's Changi airport.

The aircraft was at 32,000 feet over the Java Sea in Indonesian territory when it lost contact with the air traffic control amid a raging thunderstorm in the area.

The Indonesian government and AirAsia Tuesday said the wreckage of the plane was found in the Java Sea, and an unspecified number of bodies were retrieved.