AirAsia Flight QZ8501 lost contact with air traffic control Sunday on a flight to Singapore from Surabaya, Indonesia, as it was climbing to a higher altitude to avoid stormy weather, officials said. Contact with the Airbus Group NV A320 jet, which can seat 180 passengers, was lost at 7:24 a.m. local time -- almost two hours after takeoff.

 

The disappearance follows a series of ill-fated flights this year, of which two belonged to Malaysia Airlines. In March, one of its Boeing Co. 777s went missing with 239 people on board en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, and the wreckage⁴ still hasn't been located. And in July, another 777 belonging to the Malaysian carrier was shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing⁵ all 298 aboard in the year's deadliest air accident.

 

An Air Algérie flight also crashed in July while flying to Algeria from Burkina Faso. All 116 people on the plane died.

 

MH370 dropped off the radar⁶ an hour into flight. At the end of 2014, the families of the victims still have no answers. WSJ's Jason Bellini reports.

 

Despite these accidents and a series of others during the summer, the loss of life during 2014 before the disappearance of the AirAsia plane Sunday was still below the 10-year average of 676 fatalities⁷, according to data from the Aviation Safety Network, an affiliate⁸ of the not-for-profit Flight Safety Foundation. Crashes this year had led to 526 fatalities before contact was lost with the AirAsia jetliner, the group said. The deaths from the shootdown over Ukraine aren't counted because they are linked to a hostile act.

 

"It will probably come as a surprise to most people, but really it was a very safe year," said Paul Hayes, director of safety at aviation consultancy Ascend⁹.

 

The number of fatalities from plane crashes this year is a long way off the 1,074 people who were killed in 2005. The figures were much higher in the 1970s and 1980s, when far fewer people flew.

点击收听单词发音