Air Asia Flight Lost Over Indonesia

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Latest news is that they only found 3 bodies so far. Indonesian rescue services say that there was a miscommunication.
 
No, actually the latest news is that AirAsia has had another accident. This one much less severe but an accident nonetheless.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ey-are-following-the-qz8501-news-9949951.html

Looks like the wet runway was a factor, obviously. The front gear is either sunk into the dirt or collapsed. Lovely.

EDIT: Kalibo lacks a precision approach procedure. It only has non-precision instrument approaches because it uses either a localizer or VOR which provide lateral guidance but not vertical. This is not a problem at all but it is slightly more difficult to perform. The pilots are flying a chart down to a minimum altitude and at either a certain distance or time they look up. If they see the runway environment they begin a visual approach. If they don't, they either go around or go somewhere else.

It's understandable how small mistakes like approaching a few knots fast or a few feet high could combine with a heavy plane and very wet runway to extend the rollout considerably. That's something the pilots have to plan for but apparently they needed another 100 feet this time. Visibility being on the edge of acceptable could delay the decision to continue just enough that the final approach is above the ideal glide slope. And you can't simply descend faster because you'll speed up and float a few feet above the runway, wasting valuable distance.
 
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R1600Turbo
And then this happened today.

http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/wa...-runway-in-philippines-378245699512?CID=sm_FB
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Keef
No, actually the latest news is that AirAsia has had another accident. This one much less severe but an accident nonetheless.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ey-are-following-the-qz8501-news-9949951.html

Looks like the wet runway was a factor, obviously. The front gear is either sunk into the dirt or collapsed. Lovely.

EDIT: Kalibo lacks a precision approach procedure. It only has non-precision instrument approaches because it uses either a localizer or VOR which provide lateral guidance but not vertical. The pilots are flying a chart down to a minimum altitude and at either a certain distance or time they look up. If they see the runway environment they begin a visual approach. If they don't, they either go around or go somewhere else.

It's understandable how small mistakes like approaching a few knots fast or a few feet high could combine with a heavy plane and very wet runway to extend the rollout considerably. That's something the pilots have to plan for but apparently they needed another 100 feet this time.
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KLO has quite the lengthy runway so extreme hydroplane or they never did a go-around... Hard to believe they landed at the hash and took that long to brake to a stop..

Other news, AirAsia had another plane with a tire blow-out. Not serious news at all, as they happen quite often. If it weren't for the missing Airbus none of these two incidents would make it to international media..
 
Yeah, they're in the hot seat right now.

I edited my post to give other reasons why the landing could have gone long.
 
Reading that article you linked, I've only read that a few (3-7) bodies were found, but the article said 40 were found...

Anyways, I can't find the flight number (Only Z2272 but I get nothing on flightaware or similar) to look up stats for it, but it's not a major deal so not much else will come out from it..
 
Gosh this hasn't been a great 48 hours, yesterday Virgin Atlantic flight VS43 had to make an emergency landing at Gatwick with one of the gears stuck in the undercarriage.

e744d79a-299e-4b24-8c23-92c75a461602-460x276.jpeg
 
That's some good piloting. I wonder if he had to put in any left aileron to keep the engine off the ground.
 
niky
To be fair, if that other AirAsia flight hadn't gone down, it'd hardly be news.

Several planes have overshot that runway over the past few years.

An AirAsia flight overshot it just a few months ago.

It's a terrible airport.
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They need to install an ILS and all those problems will disappear.
 
Robin.
Looks that way because it would probably tip over whilst still in motion. Only when it's comes to a standstill would it balance OK..... just.

Tell everyone onboard to lean to the left!
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The wings are making lift even while the plane is on the ground. Until it stops, the wheels aren't supporting the full weight.
 
I've seen trucks longer then the estimated depth the plane has been found in, the fact its taken so long to find something so large in relatively shallow water kinda puts just how far behind we are in technology for these sorts of things in perspective, but then we don't know if the fuselage is in tact or the outside variations that bought it to its final resting place, sad times indeed,
 
The plane hasn't been found, debris from an aircraft has...

You can't change the weather either, and 3-7m swells have slowed down the process. If they have nothing else by the end of the week then I would start to wonder can no one back track the debris?
 
Victims now have a gross negligence case against the airline. AirAsia didn't have permission to fly from Surabaya to Singapore on the day it crashed, according to the Wall Street Journal. WSJ reports that AirAsia was allowed to fly the route (that it used to fly daily) only four days a week from 28th October to 28th March because Indonesia was nearing its quota of flying passengers into Singapore. Indonesian officials told the airline was allowed to fly to Singapore on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

However, according to Acting Aviation Director, Djoko Murjatmodjo, AirAsia was flying to Singapore on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, rather than the four days appointed by the Transportation Ministry. Any resulting investigation would include Transportation Ministry officials and other airlines.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/airasia...ute-on-day-of-crash-indonesia-says-1420261574
 
Also, sonar has found large objects believed to be airplane parts in about 30 meters of water near where the bodies and other wreckage has been found.

Here's a map of the narrowed search areas and the vessels assigned to them.

B6dzwbcCcAAMIUW.jpg:large


Today (Sunday there) divers are being sent down to investigate parts of the wreckage.

And here is a decent live update site that is probably more useful than Reddit's live thread.
 
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I thought it would have something to deal with icing... Just waiting for the black box now...

I don't regard the report of the 6-9k vfpm at all either, it's just not plausible at all if the plan was flying in a level direction. Even if it were pointed 90 degrees it still (more than likely) wouldn't happen because there wouldn't be much area for lift to push it up that much...

Sad for them, but I can only hope they aren't/weren't cutting corners on maintenance.
 
Swagger897
I thought it would have something to deal with icing... Just waiting for the black box now...

I don't regard the report of the 6-9k vfpm at all either, it's just not plausible at all if the plan was flying in a level direction. Even if it were pointed 90 degrees it still (more than likely) wouldn't happen because there wouldn't be much area for lift to push it up that much...
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It is definitely plausible inside a building thunderstorm. The updrafts associated with strong thunderstorms are immense. The plane could have been totally level but entered an airmass that was moving upwards much faster than the plane could have done itself.

Grayfox
More issues for Air Asia

http://www.news.com.au/travel/trave...surabaya-airport/story-fnizu68q-1227174349222
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That doesn't sound like an issue that ever would have made the news if it weren't for the crash. Nothing to see here.
 
Keef
It is definitely plausible inside a building thunderstorm. The updrafts associated with strong thunderstorms are immense. The plane could have been totally level but entered an airmass that was moving upwards much faster than the plane could have done itself.
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I just don't see 9k fpm happening at all.

It would be interesting if someone could find a stat for the highest vfpm recorded ever in a storm. I'm sure the coast guard/AF/Navy have it for flying into some storms..
 
Swagger897
I just don't see 9k fpm happening at all.
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http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/sho...-Air-Go-UP&s=d98dbfe870b9d86f56638a2d0a87d112

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_suck

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/tstorms/hail.htm

An embedded supercell storm wouldn't be unusual in that region of the world. What I mean by embedded is it would be in the middle of a broader storm system. This would pose a problem for an airliner's onboard weather radar because if the patch of precipitation in front of the supercell were dense enough, it would absorb all the radar energy. This would cause the display to show an area behind the rain that appears precipitation free, even if it isn't, because no radar energy go to that point. Airline pilots are trained to be aware of this phenomenon and adjust the radar angle and power appropriately so they don't get tricked into aiming for a spot that looks storm free but is actually hiding and even stronger storm behind it. Satellite-based storm detection doesn't have this issue but airliners don't have access to that or more powerful ground-based radars, which don't exist in the middle of the ocean anyway.

That the pilots requested a deviation and large climb and disappeared only minutes afterward suggests to me that they realized they were headed for a strong storm too late and entered before anything could be done. The rain shadow problem fits this. If the plane did enter such a storm it easily could have encountered massive updrafts, downdrafts and large hail which could destroy the engines.
 
Keef
http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/sho...-Air-Go-UP&s=d98dbfe870b9d86f56638a2d0a87d112

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_suck

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/tstorms/hail.htm

An embedded supercell storm wouldn't be unusual in that region of the world. What I mean by embedded is it would be in the middle of a broader storm system. This would pose a problem for an airliner's onboard weather radar because if the patch of precipitation in front of the supercell were dense enough, it would absorb all the radar energy. This would cause the display to show an area behind the rain that appears precipitation free, even if it isn't, because no radar energy go to that point. Airline pilots are trained to be aware of this phenomenon and adjust the radar angle and power appropriately so they don't get tricked into aiming for a spot that looks storm free but is actually hiding and even stronger storm behind it. Satellite-based storm detection doesn't have this issue but airliners don't have access to that or more powerful ground-based radars, which don't exist in the middle of the ocean anyway.

That the pilots requested a deviation and large climb and disappeared only minutes afterward suggests to me that they realized they were headed for a strong storm too late and entered before anything could be done. The rain shadow problem fits this. If the plane did enter such a storm it easily could have encountered massive updrafts, downdrafts and large hail which could destroy the engines.
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Good finds and thanks. I guess I should change my postings as I never believed it at first because I've never heard of it, and with as much knowledge that I've gained over the years of flying and meteorology, I wouldn't ever suspect something like this to be able to occur..

And now that makes me wonder about one of my original questions, where are the PIREPS? If it were a storm of this magnitude, then it should have been seen by others on the same/similar route.

But, like the first link you gave, the man stated that they can form in in a matter of a few minutes. Added with that and from the radar pictures at the time of last transmission, (with what I recall a split between the two cells) this (extreme turbulence) may have caused it. Although, ice is just as bad, because of the amount of air rapidly shooting upwards into already sub-freezing temps...


The black box is really all we have to wait on now if indeed it lies in the found debris.
 
Swagger897
And now that makes me wonder about one of my original questions, where are the PIREPS? If it were a storm of this magnitude, then it should have been seen by others on the same/similar route.
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Why would you make a PIREP concerning conditions you aren't experiencing? Flights are supposed to be staying at least 20 miles away from thunderstorms. I don't know where to look but I assume there won't be any PIREPs about thunderstorms in the area because everybody will be avoiding them. I do know that this infrared satellite pic showed up on the Wiki page:


Air_Asia_QZ8501_Flight_Path_and_Satellite_Imagery.jpg


That was taken an hour and 15 minutes after the plane disappeared. Black shows the coldest/highest cloud tops. Surface winds over the Java sea tend to blow east.
 
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@Keef That photo is slightly spooky. They likely ran into that supercell and were caught in the updraft which is also responsible for the high clouds.
 

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