PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Air Asia Indonesia Lost Contact from Surabaya to Singapore
Old 30th Dec 2014, 04:01
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Propduffer
 
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From available information, a likely scenario is that the wreckage will be found not far from the last reported position - which if I understand things correctly was 24,000 feet altitude at 3°22'1.58"S 109°41'28"E and headed down at many thousand feet per minute. The plane would be expected to have gone below Indonesian primary radar's horizon at about that altitude. So this is about as good as it will get when it comes to knowing where a plane went down in the open ocean. Live satellite streaming of coordinates might not provide better resolution than what we have here.

On the first day's search there was rain and gail force winds at the surface and not many resources were available. No surprise it wasn't found. Yesterday the search was again mostly from the air and the water would have still been murky from the storm. So again, there's no surprise it wasn't found if the hull remained more or less intact limiting the amount of debris.

I suspect that today there will be ships searching the bottom with sonar in a 15 mile or so radius around 3°22'1.58"S 109°41'28"E and that will be how the wreck site will be found - unless miracle of miracles, the ULB functions as it is supposed to and a ship with a 37.5 kHz sonar receiver is available.

If this were a time of calm seas and sunshine, an aircraft would probably have spotted it by now in the 150 foot depths it rests in (this is world class scuba diving territory in good weather.)

There will be capable SAR ships on scene today. I'll be surprised if it isn't found today.
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