Authorities at loss to explain how AirAsia flight could go missing in monsoon

Search-and-rescue teams

have been mobilised from across southeast Asia in an effort that evoked a distressingly familiar mix of grief and mystery nine months after a Malaysia Airlines jetliner disappeared over the Indian Ocean.

This aircraft, too, had Malaysian connections: the Airbus A320-200 was operated by the Indonesian affiliate of AirAsia, a regional budget carrier based in Malaysia. While it seemed premature to make such comparisons, the Indonesian authorities could not explain why the AirAsia jet disappeared from radar screens about 40 minutes after leaving the Indonesian city of Surabaya around 5.30am.

The weather along the path of flight QZ8501 to Singapore was cloudy and a US-based weather monitoring service reported a number of lightning strikes along the way. However the monsoon conditions did not seem insurmountable for a modern airliner.

The route is a well-travelled part of the Indonesian archipelago; six other aircraft were in the vicinity of flight QZ8501 when it disappeared, according to Flightradar24, an organisation that tracks aircraft.

Boats and aircraft from at least three countries have joined the search along a 100- mile stretch of the Java Sea near the island of Belitung, between the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, the last known location.

Shortly before contact was lost on Sunday, the cockpit crew informed air traffic controllers in Jakarta that they were planning to rise to 38,000 from 32,000 feet to avoid a cloud, Djoko Murjatmodjo of Air Transport at Indonesia’s ministry of transportation, said. “At the moment, we don’t know where the exact location is, except that this morning at 6.17, we lost contact,” Mr Djoko said.

The Singapore authorities said contact was lost at 6.24am Jakarta time; the discrepancy has not been explained. Mr Djoko said the authorities had not detected any emergency distress beacons that are normally triggered by an accident.

Lightning strikes

Kompas

newspaper in Indonesia quoted Syamsul Huda, director for aviation and meteorology at the Indonesian state weather agency, as saying that there were “many clouds along the route”, including large cumulonimbus clouds.

Earth Networks, a company that tracks weather conditions across the globe, said it had recorded a number of lightning strikes “near the path” of flight 8501 on Sunday morning between 6.09am and 6.20am.

While it is rare for a lightning strike to cause serious structural damage that threatens the safety of an aircraft, it can disrupt navigation systems, such as magnetic compasses. A lightning flash, particularly at night, can also momentarily disorient the pilots.

The turbulence associated with a big storm can sometimes be severe and sudden shifts in wind direction could disrupt the airflow through a jet engine, potentially causing it to shut down. However, a shutdown of all engines in such a scenario would be highly unlikely and the Airbus A320 is certified to fly up to three hours on a single engine, in compliance with global aviation safety regulations.

The missing flight capped a disastrous year for Malaysian airlines. In addition to the Malaysia Airlines jet lost over the Indian Ocean in March, another Malaysia Airlines jet was shot down over eastern Ukraine in July. Both of those were Boeing 777-200ERs.

However the AirAsia plane’s disappearance is perhaps more rattling for Indonesia, which has seen explosive growth in air travel despite a troublesome safety record and a string of air accidents over the years.

Indonesia’s air safety regulations have failed to keep pace with the industry’s growth.

Since 2007, the European Union has barred dozens of carriers from Indonesia from its skies to put pressure on local regulators to shore up air safety standards. The majority of airlines that appear on the EU's so-called aviation blacklist do not operate flights to Europe. – (New York Times)