AirAsia flight may have made water landing before sinking, analysts say

Analysts have claimed the pilot of the crashed AirAsia flight may have made an emergency water landing, only for the plane to be overcome by high seas.

The A320-200 left Surabaya, Indonesia early on Sunday and disappeared from radar over the Java Sea during a storm, but it failed to send the transmissions normally emitted when a plane crashes or is submerged.

As search teams battled poor weather in the hunt for the black boxes, experts said the lack of transmissions suggested the experienced former air force pilot, Captain Iriyanto, conducted an emergency water landing that did not destroy the plane.

"The emergency locator transmitter would work on impact, be that land, sea or the sides of a mountain, and my analysis is it didn't work because there was no major impact during landing," said Dudi Sudibyo, of aviation magazine Angkasa.

"The pilot managed to land it on the sea's surface," he added.

The plane, carrying 162 people to Singapore, was at 10,000 metres when the pilot requested a course change to avoid storms.