AirAsia has confirmed the disappearance of its international flight with 155 passengers and six crew members.

It tweetd this morning (Nigerian time): “AirAsia Indonesia regrets to confirm that QZ8501 from Surabaya to Singapore has lost contact at 07:24hrs this morning.”

Flight QZ8501 took off at about 5:20 a.m. Sunday local time (Saturday evening in Nigeria) from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore and lost contact with air traffic control at about 7:24 a.m., about an hour before it was scheduled to land, the airline said on its Facebook page.

“Search and rescue operations have been activated by the Indonesian authorities,” according to the Singapore aviation authority. It disclosed that the Singapore air force and the navy also were activated with two C-130 planes.

This is the second time such a tragedy is happening in the region this year, a Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 having similarly gone missing last March – never to be found till date.