It's been a strange year for aviation, one marked by unsatisfying mystery. Between a plane getting shot out of the sky, another that vanished forever and still another that simply flew on until it couldn't, 2014 has shone a spotlight on the tragic limits of our ability to rescue pilots in distress. Now those issues have surfaced again with the disappearance of AirAsia QZ8501. Here's what happens when you lose a plane - and how you find one in the aftermath of a watery crash.
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An Indonesian Air Force official shows a map to journalists of the search area for the missing Malaysian air carrier AirAsia flight QZ8501, at the airport in Surabaya, East Java, on December 29, 2014.
