“Our early conjecture is that the plane is in the bottom of the sea,” said Bambang Sulistyo, the head of Indonesia’s search-and-rescue agency. That belief is based on the plane’s flight track and last known coordinates, he said.
Several possible signs of the missing plane, including an oil slick within the search zone and the sound of a faint “ping,” have been discounted, according to Indonesian authorities, who are heading the search.
Indonesia Vice President Jusuf Kalla said there were “some reports from Australia” about possible objects found, but it was unclear whether they were from the plane.
Because there is a great deal of traffic along the water in the search area, authorities have cautioned that objects found might have nothing to do with the missing aircraft.
Rescuers say weather was probably a factor in the plane’s disappearance, and it has made finding traces of the plane more difficult.
Large waves and clouds hampered the search for the plane on Sunday and Monday.
“It is not easy, of course … the operation in the sea, especially in the bad weather like this,” Kalla said.
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The MH370 mystery
AirAsia, a successful budget airline group headquartered in Malaysia, had a clean safety record until the disappearance of Flight 8501. The missing plane is operated by the company’s Indonesian affiliate.
The loss of contact with the plane comes nearly 10 months after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which dropped off radar over Southeast Asia on March 8 with 239 people on board.
AirAsia and MH370 cases are very different
Searchers have yet to find any remains of Flight 370, which officials believe went down in the southern Indian Ocean after mysteriously flying thousands of kilometers away from its planned route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
But some aviation experts don’t think the search for Flight 8501 will be as challenging as the hunt for MH370.
“We are not talking about the deep Indian Ocean here,” CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest said. “We are talking about congested airspace around Southeast Asia. There will be much better radar coverage. There’s certainly better air traffic control coverage.”
