JAKARTA, Indonesia — An AirAsia plane that crashed last month with 162 people on board was climbing at an abnormally high rate then plunged and suddenly disappeared from radar, Indonesia’s transport minister said Tuesday.
Ignasius Jonan told Parliament that radar data showed the Airbus A320 was climbing at about 6,000 feet a minute before it disappeared Dec. 28. Such a speed is more common with a fighter jet.
Jonan said the plane then plunged toward the sea and disappeared from radar. He did not say what caused the plane to climb so rapidly.
In their last contact with air-traffic controllers, the pilots of AirAsia Flight 8501 were denied permission to climb from 32,000 feet to 38,000 feet to avoid threatening clouds.
In 2009, an Air France Airbus A330 disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean in bad weather. The plane went into a steep climb and then a stall from which the pilots were unable to recover.
