Terror struck passengers of the Air Asia Flight 8501 when bad weather approached the plane heading from Indonesia to Singapore. Nearly half way during the flight, the plane was forced to fly at a lower altitude and eventually disappeared off the radar. Air Asia’s Flight 8501, containing 162 passengers, plummeted into the Java Sea. While waiting for news on the plane’s disappearance, numerous family members refused to leave.

Among the family members and friends of the passengers were 15 members of the Happy Family Center church in Surabaya, Indonesia. When the church members were informed of the incident during service, it was hard for the pastor to continue the sermon.

“I had to pull myself together to preach,” said pastor Hanny Layan Tara, 52. “What’s happening is not only for the families — I think the tragedy is for Indonesia. Indonesia is crying.”

No survivors have been found and a total of 44 bodies have been recovered from the wreckage along with some belongings. Officials are aimed at locating the black box and flight data for more information of the crash. Ships designed to pick up signals from black boxes were used at the location of the crash but are no longer being used.

Many memorials have been held for the 162 lost passengers including a private school in Surabaya where two passengers attended. Tears were shed as a slideshow for the 4^th and 5^th graders lost in the crash played along with speeches from teachers. Fellow classmates talked about their memories with the two students, Nikolas and Elbert.

“Dear Elbert, for me, you are beside me, you are so special. You made me laugh until I cry. You will always be my best friend wherever you go,” a student told CNN.

A list of passengers showed that 26 people who bought tickets for flight 8501 luckily did not board the plane. Ten of these 26 people belonged to the same group who luckily missed the flight because they were unaware of the departure time.

“It was already the final call when my husband reached the airport in the first car with our bags,” Anggi Mahesti said. “Most of the family were in another car that arrived 15 minutes later. The plane left without us.”

FSA Connection Questions:

1. What is the main idea of this article?
2. How does the author support the main idea?
3. In the article, the word plummeted means…
4. Use the word plummeted in a sentence.
5. Summarize the article in one sentence.