JAKARTA
The AirAsia A320 plane had an Indonesian captain, Iryanto, who uses one name, and a French co-pilot, five cabin crew members and 155 passengers, including 16 children and one infant, the airline said in a statement. Among the passengers were three South Koreans, a Malaysian, a British national and his 2-year-old Singaporean daughter. The rest were Indonesians.
AirAsia said the captain more than 20,000 flying hours, of which 6,100 were with AirAsia on the Airbus 320. The first officer had 2,275 flying hours.
“Papa, come home, I still need you,” Angela Anggi Ranastianis, the captain’s 22-year-old daughter pleaded on her Path page late Sunday, which was widely quoted by Indonesian media. “Bring back my papa. Papa, please come home.”
At Iryanto’s house in the East Java town of Sidoarjo, neighbours, relatives and friends gathered Monday to pray and recite the Quran to support the distraught family. Their desperate cries were so loud, they could sometimes be heard outside where three LCD televisions had been set up to monitor search developments.
“He is a good man. That’s why people here appointed him as our neighbourhood chief for the last two years,” said Bagianto Djoyonegoro, a friend and neighbour, adding that despite being busy with his job, Iryanto was always very active in the community and attentive to the needs of the people around him.
Many recalled him as an experienced Air Force pilot who flew F-16 fighter jets before becoming a commercial airline pilot.
