Malaysia has already been hit by two major aviation disasters, namely Malaysia Airlines Flight MH 370 and Flight MH 17. AirAsia, the leading budget carrier of Asia starts operation in Malaysia. Therefore, the recent Indonesia AirAsia incident is also associated with Malaysia although it has very little connection with Malaysia / Malaysian government.

Indonesia AirAsia Ownership Information

Contrary to popular belief, AirAsia Berhad does not hold majority share in Indonesia AirAsia. This is because Indonesian law does not allow majority foreign ownership of domestic civil aviation operations.

Indonesia, not Malaysia

For Indonesia AirAsia flight QZ 8501, we must keep in mind of the following:

• Flight QZ 8501 is an Indonesian aircraft, bound by Indonesian rules and regulations.
• The flight also departed from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore. The flight lost contact with Indonesian air traffic controller in Indonesian Airspace.

There is quite a number of internet users mistaken this as a Malaysian aircraft:

This one is taken on AirAsia Facebook page.

Another screenshot taken from Russian-based news portal also indicated the same sentiment.

We hope that news outlets should be more specific in reporting news to prevent false news and sentiments being raised, especially in light of two aviation disasters involving Malaysia before.

It is important for us to stop the blame game and let the respective government(s) and authorities focus on their investigation instead.

Nevertheless, AirAsia is one of the safest airline in the world with no prior incident with fatalities.