PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Air Asia Indonesia Lost Contact from Surabaya to Singapore
Old 9th Jan 2015, 14:33
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Machinbird
 
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Relatively intact at impact is not the impression that these images transmit.
The tail structure is torn off and the various hull pieces are widely separated, in water shallower than the airplane was long. To me that suggests the airplane may have come apart even before it hit the water.
Gents, best pull in your horns. This aircraft impacted with significantly less velocity than did AF447. Granted that it is a smaller aircraft and thus a bit harder to tear up into little bits, but the degree of deformation and disassembly was much higher in AF447.

This aircraft hit with very low forward velocity, from all appearances. Perhaps a spin or flat spin. Kinetic Energy goes as the square of the velocity. A spinning aircraft should have lower kinetic energy than a deeply stalled one at terminal velocity.
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