[Sarah Barracuda]

Indonesian officials have already announced that they believe this plane is “At the bottom of the ocean” reminds me of MH370 they said the same thing at first about that plane, then changed their story. Most likely this was a weather related accident, but if the plane hit the water how come there has been no debris found. With MH370 people theorized that the captain on purpose put the plane in the water in a way so that it would sink to the bottom in one piece, but in this case, if this was just a horrific accident, there should be plane parts all over the place, shouldn’t there?

[zipper]

They haven't really had much of a search yet. The weather was bad and visibility was low. The search was called off temporarily. There were some unconfirmed witness accounts of an airplane crash near an island along the likely flight path. As for the debris field, it depends on the type of impact with the water. AF447 had a section of empennage that was recovered, but as we learned later it impacted the water at a low vertical velocity, at less than a vertical downward angle. The debris field will always be down-current from the crash site, so the ULB will be crucial in locating the wreckage. The ULB is good for a couple of months, I think, and it won't take that long to locate this crash site.

[MarMema]

Beacon signals are often located within hours of crashes. If the plane is on land or in the shallow waters of the Java Sea or Karimata Strait, a region that borders some of the world’s largest islands and where depths are mostly less than 50 meters, the signal should be strong, experts said. “It’s very unlikely [for satellites, search aircraft and ships] to miss ELT signals, especially if the aircraft ended in relatively shallow waters,” said Mark Martin, chief executive at Martin Consulting, an aviation consultancy.

"Indonesia’s weather agency said cumulonimbus clouds rose to a height of 44,000 feet Sunday in the Java Sea, far higher than commercial airliners in the region fly. The plane was flying at 32,000 feet."

"investigators will ask why almost 10 other planes flew through the region unharmed at nearly the same time. Indonesia’s air traffic control operator said that of all the flights in the region Sunday morning, only the AirAsia flight requested a new flight path."

Such a good WSJ piece. I should post it perhaps.