An AirAsia jet which crashed last month with 162 people on board climbed at an abnormally high rate before plunging downwards and then disappearing from radar, Indonesia’s transport minister has said.

Ignasius Jonan told the Indonesian parliament that radar data showed the Airbus A320 was climbing at about 6,000ft (1.82km) a minute before it disappeared on December 28th last.

“It is not normal to climb like that, it’s very rare for commercial planes, which normally climb just 1,000 to 2,000ft (305m to 610m) per minute,” he said. “It can only be done by a fighter jet.”

He said the plane then plunged and disappeared from radar.

Mr Jonan did not say what caused the plane to climb so rapidly.

Last contact

In their last contact with air-traffic controllers, the pilots of AirAsia Flight 8501 asked to climb from 32,000ft (9.7km) to 38,000ft (11.5km) to avoid threatening clouds, but were denied permission because of heavy air traffic. Four minutes later, the jet disappeared. No distress signal was received.

An excessively rapid ascent is likely to cause an plane to go into an aerodynamic stall. In 2009, an Air France Airbus A330 disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

Investigators were able to determine from the jet’s black boxes that the plane began a steep climb and then went into a stall from which the pilots were unable to recover.

Possible similarities

Airbus spokesman Justin Dubon said today that it was too early to comment on possible similarities between the two crashes.

Survey ships have located at least nine big objects, including the AirAsia jet’s fuselage and tail, in the Java Sea.

The plane’s black boxes - the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder - are still being analysed.

The plane had been en route from Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, to Singapore.

Only 51 bodies have been recovered so far. Rough sea conditions have repeatedly prevented divers from reaching the wreckage.

Press Association