KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 28): The Malaysian government has deployed military assets to assist its Indonesian counterpart in the search and rescue (SAR) operation of missing AirAsia Indonesia Flight QZ8501.

Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said Malaysia has deployed three navy vessels and a military plane to assist the Indonesian Government to search for the missing plane in Belitung waters.

In a statement today, Liow said so far, no debris of the plane has been found where the plane went missing.

"The SAR is underway and we have not found the plane at this juncture of time," he added.

"We are in contact with the Indonesian and Singapore governments in relation to the missing flight QZ8501 enroute to Singapore from Surabaya, Indonesia," he said.

He added that the Transport Ministry has also established a Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC) at the Kuala Lumpur Air Traffic Control Centre (ATCC) in Subang, Selangor to assist with the coordination effort in searching for QZ8501.

The flight, carrying 155 passengers, comprising 138 adults, 16 children, infant, two pilots and five cabin crew, lost contact with the Indonesian Air Traffic Control (ATC) at 7:24am today, enroute to Singapore from Surabaya in Indonesian airspace.

According to a statement by AirAsia, there were one Malaysian and Singaporean respectively, three Koreans and 157 Indonesian passenger on board the missing aircraft.

It said the flight took off from the Juanda International Airport in Surabaya at 5.35am.

Meanwhile, AirAsia said at this time, SAR operations are being conducted under the guidance of The Indonesia of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). AirAsia Indonesia is cooperating fully and assisting the investigation in every possible way.

“The aircraft was on the submitted flight plan route and was requesting deviation due to enroute weather before communication with the aircraft was lost while it was still under the control of the Indonesian ATC.

“The aircraft had undergone its last scheduled maintenance on Nov 16, 2014,” it said.