Sunday's disappearance of an AirAsia plane with 162 people aboard is likely to refocus attention on several longstanding safety issues linked to recent crashes, including malfunctions triggered by high altitudes and ice.

While only sketchy information has become available thus far, some possible parallels have emerged between the disappearance of AirAsia Flight 8501 and recent aviation disasters.

In particular, questions are arising about freezing weather and the possibility that ice particles from high-altitude storms may have caused equipment on the AirAsia jet to malfunction, leading to an accident, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Perhaps the best-known recent example took place on Air France Flight 447, which crashed over the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, killing all 228 people on board, The New York Times reported.

Investigators determined that Air France pilots made critical errors while flying through a region known for powerful storms. These included failing to get the airliner out of a deadly stall because they kept pulling its nose up at a sharp angle, according to The Wall Street Journal.

That French plane, an Airbus A330, "plummeted into the Atlantic Ocean from roughly the same altitude as the last position controllers saw on their radar screens for Flight 8501," the Journal reported Sunday.

At this point, AirAsia "sounds more like Air France [447] to me" than any other possible scenario, said Robert Francis, former vice chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.

Francis said that while his assessment could change, "I don’t know how else you can account" for the apparently sudden loss of control. He observed that modern jets are designed to withstand severe turbulence without parts falling off.

Flight 8501's disappearance could also raise questions about how proficient the cockpit crew was in using onboard weather radar equipment to identify troubling storms. Many pilots say that adjusting the reach of these radars requires extensive practice as well as judgment that cannot be adequately developed using a simulator.

Some have advocated using "deployable recorders" which separate from a plane and float if an airliner crashes into water. Airbus is working to phase in one version of such equipment for its complete fleet.

In an interview two days before the AirAsia crash, former NTSB chairman Jim Hall called for such recorders, saying that industry has done little to improve aircraft tracking systems since March, when Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 disappeared.

"We still have a patchwork system that isn’t truly global" or tamper-proof, Hall said, adding that "no steps have been taken" to ensure that data can be received – thereby enabling rescue crews to avoid protracted, fruitless searches for wreckage.

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