While it’s too soon to speculate beyond what information has already been released about the tragic fate of an AirAsia airliner, it appears that bad weather played a key role in the crash, aviation expert Danny Wright said Tuesday on
Newsmax TV's "America’s Forum."
"It would appear that based on the weather in the convergence areas — we have both westerly and easterly flow of winds that meet together in that specific area of the world — it would appear that turbulence could probably be one of the problems," he said.
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"Turbulence is the biggest cause of nonfatal accidents in aviation," Wright said. "The FAA reports that it's the leading cause of injuries to airline passengers and flight attendants.
"Each year approximately 58 people in the United States are injured by turbulence and [by] them not wearing their seat belts during turbulence."
The Airbus A320-200 traveling from Indonesia to Singapore disappeared on Sunday with 162 people on board.
Citing the head of the search operations, the
BBC reports that Indonesian search and rescue personnel have recovered wreckage and three bodies off the coast of Borneo, not the 40 previously reported.
The pilot lost contact with air traffic control during bad weather. Wright said he had researched the weather in the area at the time of the crash and saw an ominous black cell.
"Typically, weather radar depicts weather intensity with color coding and we try to stay clear of the red- and the cyan-colored cells, but this one had a black cell dead center," he said. "It was something I've never seen in aviation before."
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The pilot did radio to change the flight path, but he probably should have avoided the area altogether, according to Wright.
"A pilot is in command of his aircraft and can call for a mayday or a pan-pan call that will allow him to now take whatever action he wishes to take," he said.
"I hate second-guessing pilots with this scenario, but the obvious choice would be, if I had been flying the aircraft, we would've avoided the area completely. Based on the information that he was provided at the time of departure, he elected to make the flight.
"He requested to change directions, which he did. He changed seven miles to the left and he also asked for a change in altitude.
Generally, two thirds of turbulence-related accidents occur at or above 30,000 feet. Cloud tops in this area were above 55,000 feet."
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