Sudden descents rare but deadly: Clues to Indonesia plane crash

Aviation safety analysts cautioned that it's far too early to say what caused the crash

The crash of Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 -- still a vexing mystery -- falls into a broad category of airliners that suddenly plunge out of the sky.
 

Such violent descents make up a small percentage of overall accidents, but account for an outsize portion of deaths because they almost inevitably kill everyone aboard. While the airline accident rate has steadily improved, there have been multiple crashes of that type in recent decades.

The Sriwijaya flight, with a 26-year-old Boeing Co. 737-500 jet, took off from Jakarta with 62 people on Jan. 9 and at first flew what