PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Air Asia Indonesia Lost Contact from Surabaya to Singapore
Old 7th Jan 2015, 14:40
  #1464 (permalink)  
Machinbird
 
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The photo of inside tells the most: it is taken inside aft fuselage looking from front towards the tail end and considering that light comes from the top of photo, I believe camera was held reasonably level. Therefore, this part of tail section probably rests leaning on vertical stabiliser with its right side on the bottom (left side exposed - photographed) Right half of horizontal stabiliser pushed into the mud or is (partially) broken away-fuselage rests half inverted to the right side-approx. 130 deg. from normal. Interior shows horizontal stabiliser (THS) and parts of THS mechanism, that moves-trims horizontal stabiliser via jackscrew. It appears it is in extreme position ANU, (leading edge to the bottom-aircraft nose up) but cannot say for sure as mechanism looks broken and fuselage skin severely distorted. Am surprised that CVR / DFDR were not found, as they are installed very close to position, from where the photo was taken. I assume that part of the fuselage is not in the same piece with the structure photographed.
There is a major difference in this wreckage and that from AF447 and the Perpignan A-320 accidents. The vertical stabilizer was not thrown forward by the impact! This implies that forward speed is much less than those two accidents. Low forward speed is a characteristic of spin in accidents. Rotation is another characteristic of spin in accidents-not enough information yet to make a determination on that point.

If the horizontal stabiliser is indeed run into the full nose up trim range I think I will have some bad things to say about the flight control laws.

We will find out soon.
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