How missing Flight 8501 is different from MH370

Nine months after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared shortly after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur, Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501, an Airbus A320 airliner carrying 162 people, disappeared from radar screens early Sunday, about 40 minutes after leaving the Indonesian city of Surabaya en route to Singapore.

Till Monday, there were no signs of the missing plane. The story of AirAsia flight QZ8501 sounds remarkably similar to that of Malaysia Airlines MH370, which remains missing nearly 10 months after it disappeared from radar screens on a flight between Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Beijing.

But it isn’t, analysts say.

1. There’s not anywhere near as much intrigue

When MH370 disappeared, the plane’s identifying transponders appeared to be intentionally shut off, its pilots stopped making radio transmissions and the airliner made a mysterious turn before possibly traveling for hours until all traces vanished.

However, there has so far been no indication in the case of the AirAsia flight that the crew took any action to disable any onboard systems.

2. Shallow waters

One major difference between the two flights is that the presumed location of the AirAsia Airbus A320-200 is in the relatively shallow waters of the Java Sea, as opposed to the deep waters of the Indian Ocean, where MH370 disappeared.

3. Communications

Another advantage for searchers looking for Flight QZ8501 is that the plane vanished from radar just four minutes after a ground controller last spoke with one of the AirAsia pilots, and just one minute after the plane was last seen on radar.

Compare those short intervals to the Malaysia Airlines case, in which a full 17 minutes elapsed before ground controllers even realised the plane was missing, because the plane was in a border zone between two Flight Information Regions — the zones in which air traffic controllers from one country maintain contact with a plane.

But in the border areas between FIRs, no one is in contact with the plane, and it effectively flies invisibly. Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was in a border between Malaysian and Vietnamese FIRs.

4. Pilots

Captain Iriyanto, the pilot of missing AirAsia flight QZ8501, had clocked 6,100 hours of flying time. Flying with him was first officer Remi Emmanual Plesel, who had logged 2,275 hours of flying time. Plesel is a French national.   Flight MH370 Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah had logged 18,365 flying hours and joined MAS in 1981. Zaharie had also set up a Boeing 777 simulator in his home.