Missing AirAsia Flight 8501 plane one of the safest

At the moment AirAsia Flight 8501 vanished from the radar Sunday, it was flying at cruising altitude, typically the safest part of a flight, and passing through heavily traveled airspace.

Data from FlightRadar24.com showed several planes in the same area before the AirAsia flight disappeared, reports CBS News transportation correspondent Jeff Pegues.

"There are a number of things that could've happened to this aircraft," CBS News national transportation safety expert Mark Rosenker said. "They'll be interviews from the pilots who were in the area at the time. They'll be also talking to the air traffic controllers."

The jet, an Airbus 320, had logged about 23,000 hours of flight time over 13,600 flights.

According to a Boeing safety study published in August, Airbus 320s have one of the lowest accident rates in the industry. AirAsia is widely considered to have a good safety record.

The incident has drawn similarities to Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, which investigators said disappeared somewhere over the Indian Ocean in March with 239 people on board.

But unlike that plane, Flight 8501 disappeared over the relatively shallow Java Sea, which only reaches depths of about 150 feet.

"We're going to have a much easier time of finding the debris field, and then ultimately finding out where those black boxes came to rest on the ocean floor, given that it's a much more shallow area than where we were looking at with Malaysian 370," Rosenker said.

So far, the National Transportation Safety Board has not sent a team to Indonesia, but the agency says it is monitoring the search for the plane and is ready to help if needed.