Indonesia's vice-president Jusuf Kalla (C) speaks to the media regarding AirAsia Flight QZ8501 during a visit to the National Search and Rescue Agency in Jakarta December 28, 2014. Indonesia's air force was searching for an AirAsia plane carrying 162 peop
Indonesia's vice-president Jusuf Kalla (C) speaks to the media regarding AirAsia Flight QZ8501 during a visit to the National Search and Rescue Agency in Jakarta December 28, 2014. Indonesia's air force was searching for an AirAsia plane carrying 162 people that went missing on Sunday after the pilots asked to change course to avoid bad weather during a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore. Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501, an Airbus 320-200, lost contact with Jakarta air traffic control at 6:17 a.m. (6.17 p.m. EST/2317 GMT), officials said. REUTERS/Darren Whiteside
Indonesia's vice-president Jusuf Kalla (C) speaks to the media regarding AirAsia Flight QZ8501 during a visit to the National Search and Rescue Agency in Jakarta December 28, 2014. Indonesia's air force was searching for an AirAsia plane carrying 162 people that went missing on Sunday after the pilots asked to change course to avoid bad weather during a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore. Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501, an Airbus 320-200, lost contact with Jakarta air traffic control at 6:17 a.m. (6.17 p.m. EST/2317 GMT), officials said. REUTERS/Darren Whiteside (INDONESIA - Tags: DISASTER TRANSPORT TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY POLITICS)

In what seems to be a repeat of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, AirAsia Flight QZ8501 remains missing for around 24 hours as nations stepped up offers of help to search for the Singapore-bound jet with 162 people aboard.

Among those that had offered help in search operations is Australia. In a tweet, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said that he had spoken to Indonesia President Joko Widodo. Besides conveying Australia's sadness over the aircraft still untraced, he also offered a P3 Orion jet to help in the search for the aircraft, ABC reports.

Singaporean Second Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing offered four naval ships to help in the search, in addition to the C130 plane it had deployed.

YouTube/Quang Minh

The search operations is concentrating on an area among Kalimantan, Borneo and Java in Indonesia.

Meanwhile, a top Indonesian official has hinted what worried relatives of the plane's passenger and crew fear the most. Indonesia Vice President Jusuf Kalla told media at the National Search and Rescue Agency office, quoted by BBC, "For more than 10 hours of search now, there's a high possibility that an accident has happened (to the plane)."

AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes, in a press conference in Surabaya, the departure point of the missing plane, said besides finding the aircraft, the air carrier's concern are the relatives and next-of-kin of the passengers, majority of whom are Indonesians.

Resisting the temptation to think that the missing Airbus A320 suffered the same fate as the Malaysia Airlines jet that until now remains missing, Fernandes said, "We are very devastated about what's happened, it's unbelievable, but we do not know what's happened yet, so we'll wait for the accident investigation to really find out what's happened."