Military and rescue authorities monitor progress in the search for AirAsia Flight QZ8501
Military and rescue authorities monitor progress in the search for AirAsia Flight QZ8501 in the Mission Control Center inside the National Search and Rescue Agency in Jakarta December 29, 2014. The missing AirAsia plane carrying 162 people is presumed to have crashed off the Indonesian coast, an official said on Monday, as countries in the region offered to help Jakarta in the search and recovery effort. The Indonesia AirAsia plane, an Airbus A320-200, disappeared after its pilot failed to get permission to alter course to avoid bad weather during a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore on Sunday. REUTERS/Darren Whiteside

An Australian search plane, hunting for missing AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501, has reportedly spotted objects in the sea. The head of Indonesia's search-and-rescue agency earlier suggested that the missing plane might be at the bottom of the sea.

Jakarta's Air Force base commander Rear Marshal Dwi Putranto reports that the Australian plane spotted objects in the sea. An Australian Orion aircraft found "suspicious objects" near Nangka island, about 100 miles southwest of Pangkalan Bun near central Kalimantan. It is around 700 miles from the location where the flight lost contact. "However, we cannot be sure whether it is part of the missing AirAsia plane," ABC News quotes Putranto, "We are now moving in that direction, which is in cloudy conditions." The search for the plane near Belitung island, was suspended on Sunday night.

Update: The objects have been ruled out as being connected to the crash, an official said.

Bambang Soelistyo, on the other hand, said earlier that there were possibilities that the missing plane was at the bottom of the sea. According to the head of Indonesia's search-and-rescue agency, the hypothesis is based on the co-ordinates of the plane at the time when it lost contact. BBC reports that the pilots of the AirAsia flight requested a course change due of bad weather. However, no distress call was sent before the plane had disappeared from radar screens. Soelistyo talked about the possibilities of the flight ending up in the bottom of the sea at a news conference in Jakarta.

Local media outlets in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia gave similar reactions to the disappearance. Most of the people on board were travelling to go home to meet their families for the year-end holiday season. "Only three days before the New Year - where is the road to home?" Beijing Times says. Local newspapers published personal tales involving the people in the missing flight. One story says that the daughter of one of the pilots wrote on Facebook: "Papa come home." According to some, the aviation industry has a "year of tragedies" in 2014. The most talked about plane disappeared in March is Malaysian Airline flight MH370. Some experts have questioned the safety about the aviation services in the region.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@IBTimes.com.au