Storm seen as cause of AirAsia jet's disappearance
Monsoon storm clouds in the Java Sea rise well above the level at which jets fly
Monsoon storm clouds in the Java Sea rise well above the level at which jets fly
A four-nation search for the missing AirAsia Indonesia Flight 8501 resumes in the Java Sea for a third day with no sign of a crash or messages from emergency beacons.
The Airbus A320-200 disappeared without warning about one-third into a three-hour journey from Surabaya in eastern Java to Singapore.
On board were 156 passengers and six crew, who are feared dead, leaving relatives and friends grieving in crisis centres at both airports.
Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia have deployed 30 vessels and 15 planes to search waters in the Karimata Strait, midway between Java and Singapore.
Tatang Kurniadi, chief of Indonesia’s National Committee for Transportation Safety, which is leading the investigation, says inclement weather is considered the most likely cause.
Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, in Surabaya to meet with family members and friends of the passengers, who were overwhelmingly Indonesian, says the search was “not easy.”
Search-and-rescue officials say the plane is most likely “at the bottom of the sea,” though the widened search areas doas cover coastal land.
One of the most pressing questions for searchers and investigators is why signals haven’t been detected from multiple emergency beacons on the Airbus A320.
The beacons, known as emergency locator transmitters, or ELTs, are made to emit signals to satellites on crashing and last about 30 days.
The Indonesian weather agency says storm clouds rose to a height of 44,000ft in the Java Sea on Sunday, far higher than commercial airliners. The plane was flying at 32,000ft.
It was the only one of nearly 10 other planes in the area to seek a change of course to avoid the monsoon storm clouds, which carry dangers of wind shear and icing.
It was also the lowest-flying plane in the region at the time of its disappearance, according to FlightRadar24, a flight-tracking service.
News agencies report that at one point, pilots of the flight received permission from Indonesia’s Air Traffic Control to alter their course by seven miles to the left to avoid storm clouds. They also requested permission to climb to 38,000ft, which ATC later said it believed was for the common reason of saving fuel.
ATC decided instead to allow the plane to ascend to 34,000ft in the relatively crowded skies but by the time it returned with that message it couldn’t establish radio contact with the plane. Shortly after, it vanished from radar.