‘Goodbye Forever,’ Passenger Aboard Missing AirAsia QZ8501 Told Relative Before Flight

A man who was supposed to board Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501 wept as he recalled his conversation with one of the passengers. “Goodbye forever,” one of the passengers aboard the missing flight jokingly told him, unknowing of their fate.

Flight QZ8501 was en route from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore on Sunday with 162 passengers and crew on board. While travelling over the Java Sea at 06:17 local time, the plane lost contact with air traffic control, and has since been declared missing.

An unnamed man should have been one of the passengers in the flight, but he cancelled his flight two weeks ago. Though he had a lucky escape, his relative hadn’t.

“This morning before I went to pray, one of them called me and jokingly said, ‘See you in the new year and goodbye forever,’” the man cried as he recalled the conversation with Channel NewsAsia. “That’s all, and then the bad news came.”

The man is just one of the many distraught relatives and friends of the passengers of the missing flight. He is also another passenger who was supposed to be on board the plane. Christianawati and her 10-member extended family missed the flight when they arrived at the Juanda International Airport a few minutes too late.

AirAsia tried to contact Christianawati’s husband Ari Putro Cahyono through emails and phone calls to inform him that their flight would be leaving two hours earlier than 7:20 am. The family thought it was disappointing that they missed their plane, but learnt of their fortune when an airport official approached them with the news.

“This must have been the best Christmas gift your family ever received,” Christianawati recalled to Fairfax Media Australia the words of the official. “The flight you were supposed to be on has crashed.”

There’s no confirmed news that Flight QZ8501 had crashed, only that it had disappeared from radar. And although the family felt relieved for themselves, they felt they had also “lost our spirit.”

“I just remember those people who we saw running to the last call,” her husband said. “I hope they find them. I really hope search and rescue finds them soon.”

There are 155 Indonesians on board the flight, with three South Koreans, and one each from France, Malaysia, Singapore and the UK. Sixteen of those passengers are children, and one is an infant. According to the passenger manifest for the flight, there were 26 people who booked tickets but missed it.