The passengers and crew aboard AirAsia Flight QZ 8501 could have expected to have landed in Singapore at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, after a flight of just over two hours.
They departed Juanda International Airport in Indonesia’s East Java early that morning, but amid increasingly bad weather the pilots requested to deviate from their planned route, AirAsia said in a statement.
What happened next is a mystery that Indonesian authorities are racing to unravel.
‘Focus on the diversion’
The flight’s original flight path, a journey of 1,362 kilometers, took it over the Java Sea.
It’s unclear where the diversion took place, but CNN’s aviation expert Richard Quest says that’s where investigators’ attention should focus.
“Bad weather per se does not bring down aircraft,” he said. “Merely because a plane is going through bad weather shouldn’t be an issue. But how the pilot may respond to bad weather could be an issue in this case,” Quest said.
With around 8,000 flying hours between them, the pilots could be considered “moderately experienced,” Quest said.
‘Might not have had many options’
At its time of disappearance, Reuters reported, the plane was cruising at some 32,000 feet with a request to reach 38,000 feet — the safest portion of the flight.
However, Mary Schiavo, CNN aviation analyst and former inspector-general of the U.S. Department of Transportation, said weather can change quickly and there may have been little time to act.
“This weather system might have built up very quickly and they’re on their own up there. With the weather up to 52,000 feet, and the operation ceiling is up to about 40,000 on this plane, so they might not have had many options,” she said.
CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam said very heavy thunderstorms were recorded in the region.
“Turbulence could certainly have been a major factor,” he said.
Indonesian-led investigation
The plane was flying through Indonesian-monitored airspace — or Indonesia’s flight information region (FIR) — when contact was lost, according to AirAsia.
“They should be able to see on radar exactly where the plane went,” Schiavo said.
Several hours after it disappeared, Malaysia’s Minister of Transport confirmed the Indonesian government had started a search and rescue mission for the missing plane.
“They need to be searching the water but not necessarily for a plane, they need to be searching for any clues,” Schiavo said.
Timing is crucial
It’s too early to say what happened to Flight QZ 8501, but parallels are already being drawn between its sudden disappearance and that of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which dropped off radar on March 8.
Australian authorities are still searching for answers to the fate of that aircraft and the 239 people on board.
However, Schiavo says, if investigators have early access to radar information there’s no reason to suspect a second prolonged flight mystery.
“MH370 was unusual; first they said there was no radar, then later military said they did.
“They should be getting data on where that plane was last spotted on radar and that’s where they should be searching. They need search crews on the water and to do that you need to have that (data from) radar. No one wants a repeat of 370 where you can’t find it because you left it too late.”