SACRAMENTO (KMJ) — More clues are coming to light about the recent AirAsia flight that went missing between Indonesia and Singapore.
There's been no trace of the jet since it disappeared from radar screens Sunday morning – after leaving Indonesia's second largest city Surabaya with 162 people on board.
A severe thunderstorm is considered the biggest clue into the aircraft's disappearance – according to flight technology expert Scott Miller. But he says it wouldn't necessarily mean its departure would be put back.
“If thunderstorms were the risk — most likely if the thunderstorm was going to be at an airport that you might be trying to take off or land – you’d want to delay the flight for that. Because, of course, you can’t move the airport, that’s where you have to land. And operating close to the ground, you don’t have a lot of cushion or a lot of margin. But up at cruise, thunderstorms are actually pretty easy to manage.”
The Sacramento city college professor says the fact that the pilot asked for an altitude and course correction is important – because usually they just ask for one or the other.
He says that – in most cases – thunderstorms during flight are easy to manage as planes can just fly around them.
