airasia AirAsia Flight 8501 Crash

[RipRap 4,400]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30614627

 

AirAsia Flight QZ8501, an A320 with 162 souls on board. It departed from the Indonesian City of Surabaya to Singapore.

 

UPDATE: PK-AXC is the registration number on the aircraft.

UPDATE: First search started 24 hours after disappearance

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

CBC flash news: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/airasia-flight-qz8501-loses-contact-with-air-traffic-control-reports-1.2884831

 

Transport Ministry official Hadi Mustofa said the aircraft, flight number QZ8501, lost contact with the Jakarta air traffic 
control tower at 6:17 a.m local time.
 
He said the plane had asked for an unusual route before it lost contact.

Hijacked?

[JP Schriefer 5,591]

For God's sake, not again! I hope everything's fine and have just being some momentary problem, although probably is not this

 

 

AirAsia has established an Emergency Call Centre that is available for family or friends of those who may have been on board the aircraft. The number is: +622129850801.

 

According to globo.com, a brazilian news website (in portuguese) right now: "The Indonesian TV said the plane takes on board 155 people: 149 Indonesians, 3 Koreans, 1 Sinhala, 1 Malaysian and 1 British. The information is the same international agencies Efe and Reuters news. The France Presse (AFP) reported that the aircraft contains 161 people."

[jmsepe 2,040]

Holy crap, this year is a year for missing planes. Definitely not a good year for aviation and wait, why is it that always planes from this regions get featured?

[Kiiroitori 55]

Holy crap, this year is a year for missing planes. Definitely not a good year for aviation and wait, why is it that always planes from this regions get featured?

 

Hmm, well in terms of the 3 major aviation disasters this year, all 3 of which are Malaysian Airline companies would be on reason. 

 

 

CBC flash news: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/airasia-flight-qz8501-loses-contact-with-air-traffic-control-reports-1.2884831

 

Transport Ministry official Hadi Mustofa said the aircraft, flight number QZ8501, lost contact with the Jakarta air traffic 

control tower at 6:17 a.m local time.

 

He said the plane had asked for an unusual route before it lost contact.

Hijacked?

 

 

I wouldn't count on that just yet. A pilot would request this for numerous reasons, most commonly deviation for weather. At the moment, the region is experiencing Monsoon season so it could make sense. Otherwise there could be other reasons such as medical emergencies, bad behaviour etc, or mechanical issues which should require immediate attention. What is unusual is, the pilot would state a reason why, if not, Air traffic control should have questioned the motive otherwise. More information should be released before speculation.

 

Anyhow.

Pray for all passengers onboard. Im flying Air Asia this Sunday back to my home town in Malaysia. Then again from Malaysia to Taiwan. Hope for a good outcome.

 

UPDATE: AIrAsia has established an emergency call centre at +622129850801, the A320 aircraft was built in 2008, and is owned by Doric. Singaporean Navy and Air Forces have been axtivated and offered to aid Indonesia, and indonesian authorise had lost contact with the plane at 0724, SIngapore was notified at 0754. A waiting area for family and friends has been established at CHangi AIrport. The plane is believed to have been over the Java sea between Kalimatan and Java islands when contact was lost. The AIrcraft was at 32,000ft at the time and contact was lost 42 minutes after take-off.

 

UPDATE 2: Further Information believes that the Pilot requested to ascend to 38,000ft to avoid clouds and turbulence. Aircraft fuel onboard was enough for 4 hours and 30 minutes worth of inflight duration. Indonesian authorities have requested information from other aircraft in the area. Indonesian authorities have dispatched national security forces along points of indonesia, heading west of Java sea where contact was lost. 

 

UPDATE 3: An updated statement Early statement from Airasia says that "The captain in command had a total of 6,100 flying hours and the first officer has a total of 2,275 flying hours.

There 155 passengers on board, with 138 adults, 16 children and 1 infant. Also aboard were 2 pilots and 5 cabin crew.

Nationalities of passengers and crew onboard are as below:

1 Singapore

1 Malaysia

1 France

3 South Korea

156 Indonesia

At this time, search and rescue operations are being conducted under the guidance of the Indonesia Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). AirAsia Indonesia is cooperating fully and assisting the investigation every way possible.

 

The aircraft had undergone its last scheduled maintenance on 16 November 2014."

 

UPDATE 4: An unconfirmed leaked image of ATC screen on QZ8501 showed that it was at 36300ft and but climbing, with a ground speed of  353knts. [i'm unconvinced this real... and something doesn't look right...]

 

UPDATE 5: Apparently flight QZ9501 was flying on FL320, where as other aircraft in the area were flying in FL340-FL390. [strange.... I'm starting to suspect this maybe weather related, a posible pilot error t.]

For those who don't what I'm talking about, FL means Flight level, and it is a standard protocol in height units in flight planning, by which the cruise altitude is represented in 3 numerical figures followed by the acronym which. Ie: FL320 in this means an altitude of 32,000ft.

According to Airbus, since the missing A320 was delivered in late 2008 it has flown around 13,600 flights.

[Drack 616]

not a good year for aviation (not the worst, however if you view the past decades).

 

sad to say but the SEA region's airline industry has some issues regarding safety.

[CapTon 592]

After seeing all these planes go missing, I'm still not afraid of flying for whatever reason. This is horrible, however, and I pray for the passengers as well as their families and friends.

[Drack 616]

After seeing all these planes go missing, I'm still not afraid of flying for whatever reason. This is horrible, however, and I pray for the passengers as well as their families and friends.

 

indeed. theres no year that ever goes by without an accident/incident, and the chances of happening are still pretty low. unfortunately this year's has been put into a lot of sensationalism since MH370.

[TekindusT 3,809]

After seeing all these planes go missing, I'm still not afraid of flying for whatever reason. This is horrible, however, and I pray for the passengers as well as their families and friends.

Some of us have no other option. I have a slight bit of fear to fly (nothing that puts me off flying, though), but I keep it back by being informed on how planes and civil aviation work, and thinking on the probabilities on having an accident. My daily commute to work is more dangerous than flying.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

How are these planes GPS tracking devices and other tracking devices failing like this? It was like the first MH370 plane crash (or disappearance) where it vanished with nary a trace. That is despite satellite tracking, GPS, air traffic control and a whole lot of other tracking measures which locate the position of a plane internationally every second of every day.

 

These devices could only fail if say there were powerful electromagnetic waves or pulses in the area.

[RipRap 4,400]

Actually GPS (or GNSS systems in General) were not a reliable system as of now. It needs around a 11 satellites in tandem (22-23 overall) to locate something accurately and there will be errors due to the measures imposed by the US military (it offsets things so that other armies planning to attack US bases won't get an accurate location of places). It's still being not used by most airlines since the MH370 incident mainly because it's US Military property (hence Europe is creating the Galileo Clusters and Russia is updating its GLONASS constellation).

The system where aircraft depend from is an aging system of transponders and radar controlled by an air traffic control (in MH370's case - It was Kuala Lumpur's Jurisdiction and in QZ8501's case Jakarta). The systems terribly need to switch to the more reliable system (GPS) but it would take time before they could fully transition.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Let us all hope for a positive result.

 

I think it is clear that the tracking systems currently in place (are there any?) are not good enough.  Notwithstanding the push-back from the airlines over costs, a new system needs to be devised so that each (over water at least) flight squawks its Latitude, Longitude, Altitude and identifier at frequent regular intervals and cannot be turned off on board.

[hym 358]

Actually GPS (or GNSS systems in General) were not a reliable system as of now. It needs around a 11 satellites in tandem (22-23 overall) to locate something accurately and there will be errors due to the measures imposed by the US military (it offsets things so that other armies planning to attack US bases won't get an accurate location of places). It's still being not used by most airlines since the MH370 incident mainly because it's US Military property (hence Europe is creating the Galileo Clusters and Russia is updating its GLONASS constellation).

The system where aircraft depend from is an aging system of transponders and radar controlled by an air traffic control (in MH370's case - It was Kuala Lumpur's Jurisdiction and in QZ8501's case Jakarta). The systems terribly need to switch to the more reliable system (GPS) but it would take time before they could fully transition.

It is my understanding that GPS only needs 4 satellites to be able to get a fix on location. Three satellites provide the signal for triangulation, and the 4th provides a time signature to allow the GPS device to correct for atmospheric distortion of the signal (giving the user a much more accurate location instead of a broad area).

And yes GPS is property of the US military, but GPS has multiple channels and the military has left most of it open for civilian use. I think it is only channel 5 that the military highly restricts. The others are generally sufficient for civilian uses and work well.

[RipRap 4,400]

Oops I almost forgot about triangulation, but to actually fully implement a GNSS around the world you need around 23-24 satellites

[Kiiroitori 55]

UPDATE: An Error by Air Asia was made with the passenger manifestation, It turns out there was someone from UK on board. The french person was part of the crew.
The New Passenger manifest by nationality is as follows:
1 Singapore
1 Malaysia
1 United Kingdom
1 France
3 South Korea
148 Indonesia

Two SIngaporean C-130 Hercule's have been cleared to travel to the site, with Indonesia accepting SIngapore's offer fro aid. An Indonesia helicopter took off from Jakarta at 1500 MT with an expected flight time of 3 hours. A ship was dispatched at 8am local time in Indonesia as well.  Preparations are also being made to allow Australian aircraft to also assist in the search,

Australian Prime Minister has spoken up yesterday offering PC-130 Orion aircraft, with reports indicating that 3 PC-130 Orion have been sent by the RAAF (Australia). 

Yesterdays Bad weather had halted the search operations last night, with the search resuming in day break today at around 6:30am Local Indonesian time.

Stay Tune.

[Cheddar 119]

"Missing jet likely at 'bottom of the sea'"

 

The Indonesian National Search believes the remains of the aircraft may rest at the bottom of the sea based on available coordinates. As stated above, this tradedy marks the third commercial air disaster this year. 

 

And as stated by a husband now likely deceased, "'Praise God, this new year brings a lot of good fortune,'" we shall see what 2015 brings. 

[RipRap 4,400]

UPDATE: reports now of bodies and debris being found.

 

Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 had crashed.

 

http://video.viva.co.id/read/37361-proses-evakuasi-jenazah-korban-airasia Video of the first body being hauled from the sea.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Well that's settled it. The aeroplane flew into stormy weather and the storm clouds somehow knocked out the engines causing the plane to nosedive into the sea. RIP to those who died.

[SharkSark 397]

According to new reports first 40 bodies have been recovered from the sea. RIP to all those people 

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Well that's settled it. The aeroplane flew into stormy weather and the storm clouds somehow knocked out the engines causing the plane to nosedive into the sea. RIP to those who died.

Truly tragic.  I doubt the nosedive theory however.  Sounds more like the plane was ripped apart by the storm.  Pacific(?) storms seem to be getting more violent these days.

[Hellken 1,658]

The pilot  requested if he could climb to a higher altitude to avoid a big thunderstorm. I speculate as the plane was climbing it began to lose lift As the plane continued to climb it eventually stalled causing a crash.

 

http://www.straitstimes.com/sites/straitstimes.com/files/20141229/airasia-flight-2812.jpg

[JP Schriefer 5,591]

Sad news. RIP to the victims.

 

I hope maybe it can be used to look to MH370 in other ways too. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Possible location of wreck.

 

Luckily it is in fairly shallow water.

[Drack 616]

Tail section (and what looks like a few parts of the rear fuselage) pulled out from the sea.

 

 

Pressure Bulkhead.
 

[jmsepe 2,040]

Hmm. I presume there were no survivors then? This is tragic event indeed. I wonder how Air Asia will cope with the stress and international pressure. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Flight recorders believed located.  Recovery tomorrow.

 

It will be some time before they can be opened and analyzed.

[Forsma7 1,325]

Quick update of the news...

 

 

Crashed plane body found

 

Apparently these what the team found in the sea:

[Kiiroitori 55]

^Also to mentioned that the black boxes have already been recovered and it will take a while to analyse the data and recordings of what happened. 

[Ocram's Razr 964]

My guess is that the dangerous weather in the area is responsible. I really hope fewer tourists visit the area during their stormy season.

--Ocram

[RipRap 4,400]

Just because it's the monsoon season doesn't mean that people should be prevented flying altogether. You would have to remember that it was the holiday season and tourists are especially flying to somewhere nice, such as Singapore. Storms such as this one are not preventable and frequent year round in a tropical country like this.