Plane with 162 lost in ocean storm; Flight adds to ill-fated year for Asia air travel.

• Author: Marjan, Trisnadi
• Position: News

Byline: Trisnadi Marjan and Margie Mason

SURABAYA, Indonesia -- The search for a missing AirAsia jet carrying 162 people that disappeared more than 24 hours ago on a flight from Indonesia to Singapore resumed with first light Monday.

First Admiral Sigit Setiayana, the Naval Aviation Center commander at the Surabaya air force base, said that 12 navy ships, five planes, three helicopters and a number of warships were talking part, along with ships and planes from Singapore and Malaysia. The Australian Air Force also sent a search plane.

Setiaya said visibility was good. ''God willing, we can find it soon,'' he told The Associated Press.

AirAsia Flight 8501 vanished in airspace thick with storm clouds on its way from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. Searchers had to fight against heavy rain on Sunday before work was suspended due to darkness.

The plane's disappearance and suspected crash caps an astonishingly tragic year for air travel in Southeast Asia. The Malaysia-based carrier's loss comes on top of the still-unexplained disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in March and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July over Ukraine.

At the Surabaya airport, passengers' relatives pored over the plane's manifest, crying and embracing. Nias Adityas, a housewife from Surabaya, was overcome with grief when she found the name of her husband, Nanang Priowidodo, on the list.

The 43-year-old tour agent had been taking a family of four on a trip to Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia's Lombok island, and had been happy to get the work.

''He just told me, 'Praise God, this new year brings a lot of good fortune,''' Adityas recalled, holding her grandson tight while weeping uncontrollably.

Nearly all the passengers and crew are Indonesians, who are frequent visitors to Singapore, particularly on holidays.

The Airbus A320 took off Sunday morning from Indonesia's second-largest city and was about halfway to Singapore when it vanished from radar. The jet had been airborne for about 42 minutes.

There was no distress signal from the twin-engine, single-aisle plane, said Djoko Murjatmodjo, Indonesia's acting director general of transportation.

The last communication between the cockpit and air traffic control was at 6:13 a.m. (23:13 GMT Saturday), when one of the pilots ''asked to avoid clouds by turning left and going higher to 34,000 feet,'' Murjatmodjo said. The jet was last seen on radar at 6:16 a.m. and was gone a minute later, he told...