Missing AirAsia flight 8501: What you should know.

An AirAsia Indonesia flight with 162 people onboard went missing Saturday as it flew through an area of severe thunderstorms over the Java Sea.

Aircraft searching for Flight QZ8501 called off the effort when night fell. The search is set to  resume  Monday morning local time, said Achmad Toha of Indonesia's search and rescue agency.

Here's what you should know:

• The plane, which was travelling from  Indonesia to Singapore, was flying through an area of intense thunderstorm activity. According to some reports, cloud tops in some of the storms were 51,000 feet.

• The last confirmed contact with the plane was about 14 hours ago. According to AirAsia's Facebook page, the flight took off at 5:35 a.m. Sunday local time from Juanda International Airport. At 7:24 a.m., it lost contact with air traffic control.

• There was no distress call from the plane.

• The plane, which is 8 years old, was last serviced one month ago.

• The plane has a good safety record and there are a lot of them flying. According to Airbus, the company that made the plane, an A320-200 Airbus takes off somewhere in the world every 2 seconds.

• In a statement, Airbus said the AirAsia aircraft that went missing had 23,000 flight hours in 13,600 flights.

• The Straits Times reports, that another AirAsia flight turned back 10 minutes after take-off in the area because of "technical problems."

• The Indonesian pilot of flight QZ8501 has 6,100 hours of flying time,  according to an AirAsia statement.

• The Associated Press reports that while the air search has been suspended for the night, some boats are still looking for any sign of the plane.

• Indonesia and Singapore launched a search and rescue operation   near Belitung island in Java Sea, the area where the jetliner lost contact with ground traffic control about 42 minutes after taking off from Surabaya.

Sources: BBC, Associated Press, AirAsia, Facebook