There are 16 children and one infant and six foreigners on the AirAsia passenger plane which lost contact with air traffic control late yesterday (Nigerian time), the general manager of Surabaya’s Juanda airport, Trikora Raharjo, has disclosed.

He told The Associated Press that the plane had six crew and 155 passengers, identifying the foreigners as three South Koreans including an infant and one each from Singapore, British and Malaysia. The rest were Indonesians, he said.

The jet was on a flight from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore when it went missing.

The contact was lost about 42 minutes after take-off from Indonesia’s Surabaya airport, Hadi Mustofa, an official of the transportation ministry told Indonesia’s MetroTV.

The aircraft was an Airbus A320-200 with the registration number PK-AXC. Search and rescue operations are under way.

The plane lost contact when it was believed to be over the Java Sea between Kalimantan and Java islands, Mustofa said. The weather in the area was cloudy.

The Singapore aviation authority said Jakarta ground control was informed it about the missing plane by about half an hour after contact was lost.