Search resumes for missing AirAsia passenger jet

[jpinx]

Unbelievable in this Day and Age , They cannot find a Jetliner of this size, it Boggles The Mind...

It's just a small dot when compared to the size of the sea.

Wish everyone could turn on cell phones and such...as many have better GPS than the airlines do. Then if a plane goes down, they could find it, by the frantic calls going out.

As far as I know a mobiles GPS system only reports it's position if the mobile has a network connection to report it on

[oldsailor35]

Not sure nowadays, but in my day the cockpit crew all had personal elt's and the aircraft one was on a hook for the captain to grab. It also went off if you dropped it, or got it wet enough.

Things haven't changed much and confirms what I already said "...somewhere where only the crew has access."

I am pretty sure when the airplane is in a stall and tailspin, the last think the skipper is thinking about is getting that pesky ELT off the hook by the door.

On the thread in the PPRuNe forum, there was an early comment about a recent Airbus maintenance directive related to the AoA tubes. Are these the same as the Pitot tubes that were integral to the demise of AF447 of northern Brazil in 2009? In that instance, the tubes iced up causing the autopilot to disconnect whereupon pilot error based on wrong assumptions of plane attitude lead to the unrecoverable aerodynamic stall. There's also maybe a similar scenario of trying to recover from a stall in the thin air afforded at 38,000', the same height from which 447 plummeted to its doom.

There was a report on the BBC, unconfirmed by them, that the radar tracked progress of the plane indicated it was travelling slow enough that a mid air stall was possible. So your scenario is definitely a possibility. But as I said, the BBC were not able to confirm this report.

One could imagine that the flight crew ( 2 pilots) would have recognised an imminent stall from cockpit warning signals, and are'nt they trained to fly out of a stall, by putting the nose down, at 38000 ft surely there would have been time to carry out this proceedure.

[NanLaew]

search areas....

search-areas.jpg

http://news.metrotvnews.com/read/2014/12/29/337992/pencarian-qz8501-di-selat-karimata-dibagi-ke-dalam-lima-blok

Huge search areas that go well to the northwest of the last plotted position that we have seen. I would reckon that like AF447, the plane was in a nose-up stall with very little forward velocity and would have hit the water, tail-first at over 200 kmh, breaking up on impact.

The prevailing currents in that channel are flowing FROM the North-Northwest TO East-Southeast. If there is any wreckage, it will be towards the east.

And you come to that conclusion how? That never crossed my mind. The scenarios I'm thinking about don't include that. It's certainly possible but there are other equally plausible scenarios.

Cheers.

Conclusion regarding what? The currents? I have worked a lot there in a business where getting the seasonal prevailing currents right make a big difference on the profitability of a project or otherwise.

Other than that, there's the assumption by some that the aircraft must have kept flying onwards after the last radar-logged position. Recent evidence on sources that refuse to be quoted directly, claim that the aircraft was already traveling too slow to be safely staying aloft. So it was either stalled or already in stall-induced free-fall. AF447 actually turned back on itself as the crew fought to gain control amid loss of credible speed and attitude indicators.

I am just guessing of course but the scenario where a period of time elapses between last normal voice contact from the cockpit and the aircraft disappearing from radar isn't a total unknown.

[oldsailor35]

search areas....

search-areas.jpg

http://news.metrotvnews.com/read/2014/12/29/337992/pencarian-qz8501-di-selat-karimata-dibagi-ke-dalam-lima-blok

Huge search areas that go well to the northwest of the last plotted position that we have seen. I would reckon that like AF447, the plane was in a nose-up stall with very little forward velocity and would have hit the water, tail-first at over 200 kmh, breaking up on impact.

The prevailing currents in that channel are flowing FROM the North-Northwest TO East-Southeast. If there is any wreckage, it will be towards the east.

Hit the water at 38000 ft................wow! some big waves there.

[jabis]

Corrected location of objects apparently seen in the water...

objects.jpg

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/553569-air-asia-indonesia-lost-contact-surabaya-singapore-19.html#post8800644

Here's a comparison from the last flightradar24 ping point to the estimate place you provided - 230km distance with last known heading of 310 would bring it near those coordinates in 15 minutes with the last known airspeed of 465kts ( 240m/s ). Plausible.

Edited December 29, 2014 by jabis

[Strangebrew]

Pray for those Lost souls Let the experts figure out what caused the crash, and hope it don't happen again. RIP all of those on the flight.

[NanLaew]

Not sure nowadays, but in my day the cockpit crew all had personal elt's and the aircraft one was on a hook for the captain to grab. It also went off if you dropped it, or got it wet enough.

Things haven't changed much and confirms what I already said "...somewhere where only the crew has access."

I am pretty sure when the airplane is in a stall and tailspin, the last think the skipper is thinking about is getting that pesky ELT off the hook by the door.

On the thread in the PPRuNe forum, there was an early comment about a recent Airbus maintenance directive related to the AoA tubes. Are these the same as the Pitot tubes that were integral to the demise of AF447 of northern Brazil in 2009? In that instance, the tubes iced up causing the autopilot to disconnect whereupon pilot error based on wrong assumptions of plane attitude lead to the unrecoverable aerodynamic stall. There's also maybe a similar scenario of trying to recover from a stall in the thin air afforded at 38,000', the same height from which 447 plummeted to its doom.

There was a report on the BBC, unconfirmed by them, that the radar tracked progress of the plane indicated it was travelling slow enough that a mid air stall was possible. So your scenario is definitely a possibility. But as I said, the BBC were not able to confirm this report.

One could imagine that the flight crew ( 2 pilots) would have recognised an imminent stall from cockpit warning signals, and are'nt they trained to fly out of a stall, by putting the nose down, at 38000 ft surely there would have been time to carry out this proceedure.

I will let you read the very detailed wiki on the Air France crash but quote the fundamental reasoning as follows, "BEA's final report, released at a news conference on 5 July 2012, concluded that the aircraft crashed after temporary inconsistencies between the airspeed measurements – likely due to the aircraft's pitot tubes being obstructed by ice crystals – caused the autopilot to disconnect, after which the crew reacted incorrectly and ultimately led the aircraft to an aerodynamic stall from which they did not recover."

Basically for 3 critical minutes after the autopilot disconnected, the crew had no way to confirm air speed or attitude and make corrective action. They kept increasing the nose-up attitude because they 'thought' they were in a dive where in actuality they drove the plane into the fatal stall situation.

Another coincidence apart from being in the same tropical belt where the ITCZ prevails, there's talk of cumulonimbus to over 40,000' in the area of the AirAsia aircrafts flight plan. Similarly for AF447 where, "A meteorological analysis of the area surrounding the flight path showed a mesoscale convective system extending to an altitude of around 50,000 feet (15,000 m) above the Atlantic Ocean before Flight 447 disappeared."

Someone already commented on the PPRuNe forum that it is foolish to think that the safest option is to try and go over the top of them. There's apparently a very thin line between having a flying plane and a falling brick once even mild turbulence kicks in at those altitudes. That's another scenario but recent reports indicate that the flight was never approved to go to 38,000' as they requested.

Edited December 29, 2014 by NanLaew

[AsterixThai]

these messages are copied pasted on the MH370

[gchurch259]

How many of you guys actually have any aircraft Pilot or Mechanic Experience ? Every time something happens involving and aircraft/airline this web-site goes crazy with "what if", be patient and allow those in charge do their job and report.

Thanks !!

[NanLaew]

these messages are copied pasted on the MH370

Contribute much do we?

How many of you guys actually have any aircraft Pilot or Mechanic Experience ? Every time something happens involving and aircraft/airline this web-site goes crazy with "what if", be patient and allow those in charge do their job and report.

Thanks !!

You can always ignore the thread but your contribution is noted.

[jpinx]

How many of you guys actually have any aircraft Pilot or Mechanic Experience ? Every time something happens involving and aircraft/airline this web-site goes crazy with "what if", be patient and allow those in charge do their job and report.

Thanks !!

Quite a few -- hopefully you too

[george]

UPDATE

Air Force found oil spill in Tanjung Pandan. Still unknown whether it is avtur and belongs to the missing plane or not.

-- http://news.detik.com/read/2014/12/29/161837/2789287/10/ini-penampakan-tumpahan-minyak-di-perairan-tanjung-pandan

[jpinx]

False alarm I fear

An object spotted during a sea search for an AirAsia plane was not from the aircraft, Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla said on Monday after reports that an Australian surveillance aircraft had found something.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/object-spotted-in-sea-not/1555682.html

[webfact]

Object spotted in sea not from AirAsia plane: Indonesian VP

JAKARTA (AFP) - An object spotted during a sea search for an AirAsia plane was not from the aircraft, Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla said Monday after reports that an Australian surveillance aircraft had found something.

"It has been checked and no sufficient evidence was found to confirm what was reported," Kalla told a press conference at Surabaya airport from where the ill-fated plane departed.

Australia, Singapore and Malaysia have deployed planes and ships to assist in the Indonesian search for Flight QZ8501, which disappeared over the Java Sea on Sunday en route to Singapore.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/Object-spotted-in-sea-not-from-AirAsia-plane-Indon-30250917.html


-- The Nation 2014-12-29

[jpinx]

UPDATE

Air Force found oil spill in Tanjung Pandan. Still unknown whether it is avtur and belongs to the missing plane or not.

-- http://news.detik.com/read/2014/12/29/161837/2789287/10/ini-penampakan-tumpahan-minyak-di-perairan-tanjung-pandan

Tanjung Pandan is the largest town on the island Belitung. Unfortunately google translate mangles that article so badly as to make it incomprehensible

Edit to add a bit of the translation that makes sense....

We confirmed the location of the region, Hercules navigator Major Djoko Purnomo said the area was entered in the Strait Karimata.

"Sign Karimata Strait, waters east of Tanjung Pandan," said Djoko told reporters

Edited December 29, 2014 by jpinx

[elgordo38]

thailand can ask their fleet of shrimp boats , if one of them saw anything

or send one of them helicopters

Geeze not a helicopter. They will have to expand the search looking for 2 targets instead of 1

[Benmart]

AirAsia plane which went missing en route for Singapore is likely at the bottom of the sea, Indonesia's Search & Rescue Agency chief. /MCOT

Quite staggering that the SAR people would speculate like this. I'm guessing this was some politicans comment -- not the professionals

How do you want it sugar-coated then? The plane is over 24-hours overdue, well out of fuel and with no indication that it crashed on or near any of the populated islands closest to the observed flight path or last reported position in the air.

NL:

I was taught to think and choose my words carefully, as I may have to eat them later.

Edited December 29, 2014 by Benmart

[MobileContent]

Unclear whether oil, objects found in sea linked to lost jet

TRISNADI MARJAN, Associated Press

MARGIE MASON, Associated Press

SURABAYA, Indonesia (AP) — An Indonesian helicopter saw two oily spots in the search area for the missing AirAsia jetliner Monday, and an Australian search plane spotted objects hundreds of miles away, but it was too early to know whether either was connected to the aircraft and its 162 passengers and crew.

In any case, officials saw little reason to believe AirAsia Flight 8501 met anything but a grim fate after it disappeared from radar Sunday morning over the Java Sea.

"Based on the coordinates that we know, the evaluation would be that any estimated crash position is in the sea, and that the hypothesis is the plane is at the bottom of the sea," Indonesia search and rescue chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said.

The Airbus A320-200 vanished Sunday morning in airspace thick with storm clouds on its way from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore.

After the search expanded Monday, Jakarta's Air Force base commander Rear Marshal Dwi Putranto said an Australian Orion aircraft had detected "suspicious" objects near Nangka island, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Pangkalan Bun, near central Kalimantan, or 700 miles (1,120 kilometers) from the location where the plane lost contact.

"However, we cannot be sure whether it is part of the missing AirAsia plane," Putranto said. "We are now moving in that direction, which is in cloudy conditions."

Air Force spokesman Rear Marshal Hadi Tjahnanto told MetroTV that an Indonesian helicopter spotted two oily spots in the Java Sea east of Belitung island. Unlike the Australian discovery, the oily spots were within the search area, which stretches 60 kilometers (37 miles) around the point where air-traffic controllers lost contact with the plane.

The last communication from the cockpit to air traffic control was a request by one of the pilots to increase altitude from 32,000 feet (9,754 meters) to 38,000 feet (11,582 meters) because of the rough weather. Air traffic control was not able to immediately grant the request because another plane was in airspace at 34,000 feet, said Bambang Tjahjono, director of the state-owned company in charge of air-traffic control.

By the time clearance could be given, Flight 8501 had disappeared, Tjahjono said. The twin-engine, single-aisle plane, which never sent a distress signal, was last seen on radar four minutes after the last communication from the cockpit.

First Adm. Sigit Setiayana, the Naval Aviation Center commander at the Surabaya air force base, said 12 navy ships, five planes, three helicopters and a number of warships were taking part in the search, along with ships and planes from Singapore and Malaysia. The Australian Air Force also sent a search plane.

Searchers had to cope with heavy rain Sunday, but Setiayana said Monday that visibility was good. "God willing, we can find it soon," he told The Associated Press.

The plane's disappearance and suspected crash caps an astonishingly tragic year for air travel in Southeast Asia, and Malaysia in particular. Malaysia-based AirAsia's loss comes on top of the still-unexplained disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in March with 239 people aboard, and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July over Ukraine, which killed all 298 passengers and crew.

"Until today, we have never lost a life," AirAsia group CEO Tony Fernandes, who founded the low-cost carrier in 2001, told reporters in Jakarta airport. "But I think that any airline CEO who says he can guarantee that his airline is 100 percent safe, is not accurate."

Nearly all the passengers and crew are Indonesians, who are frequent visitors to Singapore, particularly on holidays.

Flight 8501 took off Sunday morning from Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city, and was about halfway to Singapore when it vanished from radar. The jet had been airborne for about 42 minutes.

Sunardi, a forecaster at Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency, said dense storm clouds were detected up to 13,400 meters (44,000 feet) in the area at the time.

"There could have been turbulence, lightning and vertical as well as horizontal strong winds within such clouds," said Sunardi, who like many Indonesians uses only one name.

The plane had an Indonesian captain, Iryanto, who uses one name, and a French co-pilot, five cabin crew members and 155 passengers, including 16 children and one infant, the airline said in a statement. Among the passengers were three South Koreans, a Malaysian, a British national and his 2-year-old Singaporean daughter. The rest were Indonesians.

AirAsia said the captain had more than 20,000 flying hours, of which 6,100 were with AirAsia on the Airbus 320. The first officer had 2,275 flying hours.

"Papa, come home, I still need you," Angela Anggi Ranastianis, the captain's 22-year-old daughter pleaded on her Path page late Sunday, which was widely quoted by Indonesian media. "Bring back my papa. Papa, please come home."

At Iryanto's house in the East Java town of Sidoarjo, neighbors, relatives and friends gathered Monday to pray and recite the Quran to support the distraught family. Their desperate cries were so loud, they could sometimes be heard outside where three LCD televisions had been set up to monitor search developments.

"He is a good man. That's why people here appointed him as our neighborhood chief for the last two years," said Bagianto Djoyonegoro, a friend and neighbor.

Many recalled him as an experienced Air Force pilot who flew F-16 fighter jets before becoming a commercial airline pilot.

The missing aircraft was delivered to AirAsia in October 2008, and the plane had accumulated about 23,000 flight hours during some 13,600 flights, Airbus said in a statement.

The aircraft had last undergone scheduled maintenance on Nov. 16, according to AirAsia.

The airline has dominated budget travel in Southeast Asia for years, highlighting its low fares with the slogan, "Now everyone can fly." It flies short routes of just a few hours, connecting the region's large cities. Recently, it has tried to expand into long-distance flying through sister airline AirAsia X.

The A320 family of jets, which includes the A319 and A321, has a good safety record, with just 0.14 fatal accidents per million takeoffs, according to a safety study published by Boeing in August.

-- (c) Associated Press 2014-12-29

./. and here we go again it's the same rubbish news that we had with MH 370.

I would focus more on the issue that the day before the flight the plane was delayed for over two hours from Kuala Lumpur to Surabaya and I wonder if technical issues was the matter. The flight of the plane was delayed for several hours from KLIA 2 before it finally took off from KL to Surabaya. Furthermore the plane was only used once in the past 1 week from Surabaya to Singapore and the other 4 flights from Surabaya to Singapore was a different plane. A delay of 2-3 hours takeoff seems to be not normal.

i am not a commercial pilot but I do co-pilot often a C-172 Skyhawk (Single engine) in Udon Thani and Sakon Nakhon as a hobby.

[Jimbolai]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

UPDATE

Objects Spotted In Sea In Missing Plane Search

An Australian plane has spotted objects in the sea during the hunt for the missing AirAsia flight QZ8501, officials have said.

Indonesian officials said the search team had made the discovery while searching for the jet which stopped communicating with air traffic control over the Java Sea in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Earlier, the chief of Indonesia's search effort said that the missing AirAsia passenger plane "is likely at the bottom of the sea".

Bambang Soelistyo added that an initial investigation into the disappearance had revealed that the "estimated crash position is in the sea".

More than a dozen ships have been sent to the area to try to find the aircraft.

Australia, Singapore and Malaysia have deployed planes to assist in the Indonesian-led search.

The UK, France and the US have offered technology to assist in the search for debris, much of which may not be on the surface.

Search teams are currently scouring an area where the sea is 40-50 metres (130-160 feet) deep, Mr Soelistyo told journalists.

Distraught relatives spent the night in the Indonesian city of Surabaya hoping for news of loved ones.

One, who called herself Intan, called on Indonesia to ask for help from other countries, rather than try to carry out the search alone.

She said: "My hope is Indonesia seeks as much help as possible from other countries. Don't claim 'We have sophisticated technology', just ask other countries because they are better equipped.

"My prayer is I really, really hope that there will be news about the people on board. Whatever it is, what is important is we know where they are now."

Air traffic controllers lost contact with the twin-engine aircraft around an hour after it left Surabaya's Juanda international airport at about 5.35am on Sunday local time (10.35pm on Saturday, UK Time).

The flight had been on its way to Singapore.

One Briton was among the 162 on board, with the rest from Indonesia, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and France.

Source: http://news.sky.com/story/1399100/objects-spotted-in-sea-in-missing-plane-search

-- SKY NEWS 2014-12-29

1120 kms away from LKP of the missing aircraft

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/553569-air-asia-indonesia-lost-contact-surabaya-singapore-18.html#post8800627

Edited to addd....

Now conflicting reports of where the supposed objects have been seen....

Starts to sound like the 370 flight. We have found it we have found it, but we forgot where.

[steven100]

The father of the pilot was on BBC just a few minutes ago. What caused flight QZ8501 to cease contact ?

Is this similar to flight MH370 .. ? Is the pilot in question .. ?

Many questions remained unanswered ......

[jabis]

I'd risk speculating the weather was a huge key factor here

[Asiantravel]

The father of the pilot was on BBC just a few minutes ago. What caused flight QZ8501 to cease contact ?

Is this similar to flight MH370 .. ? Is the pilot in question .. ?

Many questions remained unanswered ......

One question is why, after spending one quarter of $1 billion on the MH370 sea search is the world still involved in this kind of exercise?

The aviation industry evidently didn't take seriously enough the need to install satellite communication in all cockpits for real-time tracking.

[Ve37]

This is so sad,...almost 2015, and commercial aircraft still don't have locator equipment. If this plane was sitting on the water, it is 36 hours,...36 hours of people needing help,...waiting for help. I'm tired of hearing of lost airplanes,...when there is no reason a plane should get lost anywhere in World.

[MobileContent]

Is this the former Geruda airline? The one that had their landing rights revoked in all countries due to abysmal safety records. Did they reinvent themselves in AirAsia?

The plane was directly delivered to AIrAsia and has nothing to do with Garuda.Besides Garuda is not a bad airline as I have flown them many time. You seems to know nothing about the aviation industry in Indonesia so why actually comment on it. Garuda flies almost daily to Europe and they have been off the list of Europe for many years already.

My guess is it was a technical problem with the Airbus but in a year time we will hear Pilot error. The last 3 flights of PK-AXC were QZ8298 (KUL - SUB), QZ8297 (SUB - KUL) and QZ7662 (CGK - SUB) and they had many hours delays which I would suggest to technical problems.

Have a look at here:

http://www.flightradar24.com/data/airplanes/pk-axc/#5232364

Hopefully the moderators will accept the link:

[Doc46]

What is the problem with the airlines do they not have this system together so that they know were the plane is at any second of the flight?

The technology is there,, WHY,,WHY are the idiots not using this ,,,than they do not have to spent Millions $ and maybe they are able to save some lives,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,OR is this all about profit and stuff the people?,,,,,,,,,,,,

[Alwyn]

PM expresses condolences to families of passengers. That should give them hope of finding survivors then... I've been following this on the news (like everybody else I guess) and I have to say how well ceo Tony Fernandes had handled himself on behalf of aisasia. No meaningless PR statements and he's there, on the ground, not hiding away from the pressure. Kudos. Let's pray this plane is found quickly and passengers and crew are all okay

[FangFerang]

Two down in a few months. I know that is not a statistically challenging figure, but it will make people gun shy about tourism, I think.

Sorry to read this. Now is a key holiday in Asia, and makes it even more sad to their loved ones.

[jpduggan]

Wouldn't exactly want the Thais help considering that they followed that doomed Malaysian airliner on their instruments and only informed the relevant authorities the next day that they had tracked it. When asked why they didn't report it their answer was ''you never asked us''?

Thailand offers search and rescue assistance for missing AirAsia plane



BANGKOK: -- Thailand's Department of Civil Aviation is offering assistance to Indonesia to send aircraft and ships to join in the search for the AirAsia plane which went missing Sunday with 162 passengers on a flight from Indonesia to Singapore.

As Indonesia is now leading the search and rescue operation, the department has offered help to Indonesian civil aviation to join the search, said a senior official of the department Monday.

The department is now in coordination with the Royal Thai Air Force and Royal Thai Navy to stand by their aircraft and ships to join the search today.

Meanwhile Indonesia resumed the search Monday morning after the jet disappeared more than 24 hours ago on a flight from Indonesia to Singapore.

First Admiral Sigit Setiayana, the Naval Aviation Center commander at the Surabaya air force base, said that 12 navy ships, five planes, three helicopters and a number of warships were talking part, along with ships and planes from Singapore and Malaysia. The Australian Air Force also sent a search plane.

Setiaya said visibility was good. “God willing, we can find it soon,” he told AFP today.

AirAsia Flight QZ8501 vanished in airspace thick with storm clouds on its way from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. Searchers had to fight against heavy rain on Sunday before work was suspended due to darkness.

The plane’s disappearance and suspected crash caps an astonishingly tragic year for air travel in Southeast Asia. The Malaysia-based carrier’s loss comes on top of the still-unexplained disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in March and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July over Ukraine.

AirAsia’s Airbus A320 took off Sunday morning from Indonesia’s second-largest city and was about halfway to Singapore when it vanished from radar.

The jet had been airborne for about 42 minutes.

There was no distress signal from the twin-engine, single-aisle plane, said Djoko Murjatmodjo, Indonesia’s acting director general of transportation.

The last communication between the cockpit and air traffic control was at 6:13 a.m. (23:13 GMT Saturday), when one of the pilots “asked to avoid clouds by turning left and going higher to 34,000 feet (10,360 meters).

The jet was last seen on radar at 6:16 a.m. and was gone a minute later.

Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia launched a search-and-rescue operation near Belitung island in the Java Sea, the area where the airliner lost contact with the ground.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/thailand-offers-search-rescue-assistance-missing-airasia-plane


-- Thai PBS 2014-12-29

[rethaier]

Is this the former Geruda airline? The one that had their landing rights revoked in all countries due to abysmal safety records. Did they reinvent themselves in AirAsia?

Why don't you do a Google search? I am sure that you will find an answer.

No.

[Scott]

Some nasty, off-topic, bickering and inflammatory posts along with replies have been removed. Not everyone wishes to wade through a great deal of nonsense looking for information.

Your cooperation in keeping this thread on topic is appreciated.