The crew’s request for the missing AirAsia plane to take a different path has been described as curious by a US air crash search and rescue expert because there “didn’t seem to be anything unusual.”
AirAsia, a regional low-cost carrier with presence in several south-east Asian countries, said in a statement that the missing Airbus A320-200 was on the submitted flight plan route.
However, it had requested deviation due to weather before communication with the aircraft was lost while it was still under the control of the Indonesian Air Traffic Control.
The crew’s request for an unusual route is curious since the weather “didn’t seem to be anything unusual,” said William Waldock, a US expert on air crash search and rescue with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona.
Severe weather is the reason pilots usually request a different route, but in this case the “winds were light, there were a few thin clouds, but that’s about it,” he said.
He warned against drawing comparisons to the disappearance of Malaysia flight 370. “I think we have to let this play out,” he said.
“Hopefully, the airplane will get found, and if that happens it will probably be in the next few hours. Until then, we have to reserve judgment.”
The circumstances bode well for finding the plane since the intended flight time was less than two hours and there is a known position at which the plane disappeared, he said.
A major search operation was launched to find the plane, however, the search has now been called off until the morning.