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Members of Indonesia's Marine Police hold a briefing
on board a search and rescue craft prior to their heading out to sea to search
for the missing AirAsia flight QZ8501, at Pangkal Pinang port in Sumatra
Island, Monday Dec. 29, 2014 in Indonesia. Search planes and ships from several
countries on Monday were scouring Indonesian waters over which the AirAsia jet
disappeared, more than a day into the region's latest aviation mystery. AirAsia
Flight 8501 vanished Sunday in airspace thick with storm clouds on its way from
Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)
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The disappearance of an AirAsia
passenger jet soon after takeoff inevitably brings back memories of the mystery
behind Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared nearly 10 months ago and
is yet to be found.
But while it is still not known what
happened to AirAsia Flight 8501, there appear to be no reasons its presumed
crash is anything other than a regular — if tragic — aviation disaster, whose
cause will become apparent only when the wreckage and flight data recorders are
recovered, according to AP.
But until that happens, comparisons
will be made of the circumstances leading up to the two events, the responses
by regional authorities and airline officials, and the nature and challenges of
the search efforts.
Here are some of the differences
between the two events, based on what authorities have publicly disclosed about
the AirAsia plane, which lost contact with ground control in Indonesia early
Sunday morning, 42 minutes after taking off from Surabaya airport on the way to
Singapore with 162 people on board:
FOUL PLAY
Authorities suspect Flight 370 was
deliberately diverted by someone on board, and suspicions of foul play emerged
within days of its disappearance. There has been no suggestion that the AirAsia
flight is anything but an accident, meaning the aircraft should have crashed
not far from the spot where it fell off the radar. Indonesia's Transportation
Ministry says its pilots asked permission to turn left and fly higher to avoid
clouds three minutes before the jet was last seen on radar. That strengthens
early speculation that adverse weather, or the pilot's response to it, was a
factor in the accident.
SOUTHERN INDIAN OCEAN
Based on data "pings" from
Flight 370, authorities believe the plane crashed into the southern Indian
Ocean, a vast, deep, isolated stretch of water far from the last known position
of the plane. The AirAsia flight was carrying enough fuel for about four hours
of flying. Assuming it crashed soon after it dropped off the radar, finding it
should be far easier. The Java Sea is a contained body of water, shallow, and
crisscrossed by planes and ships. In normal circumstances, a plane leaves
wreckage even if it enters the water largely intact. It can take several days
for it to be spotted, however. On Jan. 1, 2007, an Indonesian jetliner carrying
102 people went missing on a domestic flight from Surabaya to Manado. A search
effort across land and sea turned up nothing until 11 days later, when a
fisherman found the plane's right horizontal stabilizer.
AIRLINE COMMUNICATIONS
Malaysia Airlines was severely criticized
following the Flight 370 disaster for giving out contradictory and vague
information. So far, that has not happened with the latest incident. The boss
of AirAsia, Tony Fernandes, has tweeted about the incident and what the company
is doing, drawing praise not scorn. Managing communications about the loss of
the flight will become more challenging if the wreckage is not found quickly.
The fact that the overwhelming majority of the passengers are Indonesians and
that it was an Indonesian-registered company operating the plane should mean
less pressure, however. Around two-thirds of the passengers on Malaysia
Airlines Flight 370 were Chinese, with the rest coming from all over the world,
only adding to what was already an unprecedented situation.
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