AirAsia Flight 8501: Pilots' behavior eyed in disappearance

A multinational search effort for missing AirAsia Flight 8501 is now concentrated over the Java Sea. There are reports of possible debris being spotted, but nothing has been confirmed. The plane left Indonesia Sunday morning on its way to Singapore, but less than an hour into the flight, the jet disappeared from radar.

Now, officials are looking at many factors that contributed to the disappearance including technical failures and weather.

"Typically we don't see large commercial aircrafts being taken down by severe weather...when you talk about smaller aircrafts going into thunderstorms, in-flight break ups are a possibility," former Chairman of the NTSB and is now President and CEO of the National Safety Council Deborah Hersman said Monday on "CBS This Morning."

It's the second flight to go missing over Southeast Asian waters this year. This time, many are wondering why there hasn't been evidence that the pilots sent a distress signal.

"So far the information that we've heard from the authorities on the ground, is that they asked for clearance to a higher altitude. There wasn't any distress signal that was sent that's been reported at this point," Hersman said. "But I will tell you for pilots, they have responsibilities and they are aviate, navigate and communicate, and communication in an emergency is really the last thing they're focusing on. They've got to handle that airplane and make sure that that is their first priority."

Indonesia's acting director general of transportation Djoko Murjatmodjo, said the last communication between the pilot and air traffic control was at 6:13 a.m. when the pilot "asked to avoid clouds by turning left and going higher to 34,000 feet" It was last seen on radar at 6:16 a.m., and a minute later was no longer there, he said.

It's these types of mysterious disappearances that have sparked worry over the degree to which air traffic control officials can successfully monitor planes.

"I will say that this is one of the biggest issues today, is after the disappearance of MH370, is why we don't have better tracking of aircraft in these dead spaces," Hersman said.