Once again a large commercial aircraft is missing at sea,
somewhere near Indonesia or Malaysia. (I
blogged
about that jet back in March)
It has been more than 24 hours since AirAsia Flight 8501 stopped
communications and dropped off radar screens. At least one Indonesian official has said he believes or at least it's his guess that the
plane is at the bottom of the ocean...
Like Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 last March, there was
no "mayday" call... So far, no identifiable debris has been
sighted... (there is a possible oil
slick, and some debris, but as we learned earlier in the year, the ocean is full of random floating debris) and
no one has mentioned the emergency location transmitter, so presumably it (there
were likely 4 were on board) has not broadcast a signal...
Reports suggest that the aircraft was at 35,000', and had
requested permission turn west and to climb to 38,000' because of weather (thunderstoms) when
contact was lost... A A320-200 has a
reported glide ratio of 16 to 1, so the plane could travel near 100 miles
without power
As a CNN International anchor Isha
Sesay stated, "There are so
many unanswered questions"
Let the conspiratorial theories begin...
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