Is bad weather to blame for missing AirAsia plane?

Aviation experts also say search and recovery efforts will be hampered by extremely bad weather.

KUALA LUMPUR: CNN has reported that extremely bad weather along the route taken by AirAsia flight QZ8501 from Surabaya to Singapore may be the reason for it having gone off the radar.

According to their reports, clouds were piling high up until 52,000 feet, and although the aircraft requested to fly higher than its 32,000 feet, it could not overcome the clouds and was at 38,000 feet when it lost contact with the air traffic control tower.

The extremely bad weather, said CNN, would also hamper what can now only be described as a search and recovery effort.

Having a differing opinion about the weather factor however was CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo.

”Ordinarily, the pilots would get the updated weather from air traffic control and, of course, their onboard radar,” said Schiavo, a former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“So whether there was (bad) weather in the area would not be a mystery.”

Also weighing in on the issue of the missing AirAsia flight was CNN’s Aviation correspondent Richard Quest who said that although Air Asia had an impeccable safety record, there had been recent changes in Indonesia where local low flight carriers merged with AirAsia.

Quest said this was a worrying trend as budget airlines in Indonesia had a poor safety record and at least one, Adam Air, was closed down by Jakarta.

According to a statement on the AirAsia Facebook page, the captain of the AirAsia flight had a total of 6,100 flying hours and was the first officer to have 2,275 flying hours under his belt.

It also stated, “The aircraft had undergone its last scheduled maintenance on 16 November 2014.”