Lion Air B737 Bali Crash

[Long Bay Mauler]

Good to see everyone is OK after this accident. Will be interesting to see the cause.

As a side note,are Australian journalists really this stupid? Read this article and find the obvious mistakes from the educated fools.


A PASSENGER plane carrying more than 100 people has crashed into the ocean off the coast of Bali.

The Lion Air craft is believed to have slid off the runway and into water outside Ngurah Rai Airport, near Denpasar late this afternoon.

A large crack was clearly visible on the plane as it sat swamped by water about 6pm (AEST).

It was not immediately known if any Australians were on board or if the broken fuselage was caused mid-air or on impact.

Early reports from Indonesia indicated passengers and crew had survived the crash and been relocated to a nearby hospital.

The plane was travelling from London to Denpasar when it experienced trouble.

Initial reports suggested the plane may have overshot the runway.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was not aware of any Australians on board.

Cookies must be enabled | Herald Sun (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/travel/news/plane-crashes-off-coast-of-bali/story-fn32891l-1226619817622)

[monarols]

LoL, @ LHR-DPS My guess its from Jakarta or Ujung Padang. Is it a 900 series? DPS has a looong runway, be interesting to see why it couldn't stop. Glad to see all survived. Was only there yesterday afternoon.....

[Flying Mechanic]

A Lionair Boeing 737-800, registration PK-LKS performing flight JT-904 from Bandung to Denpasar (Indonesia) with 101 passengers and 7 crew, was on approach to Denpasar's runway 09 at about 15:10L (07:10Z), but came to a stop in the sea short of the runway, the aircraft broke up in two parts. All occupants were evacuated from the aircraft and have been taken to hospitals with minor injuries (scratches).

The airline confirmed flight JT-904 went into the sea while landing at Denpasar Airport. The aircraft PK-LKS originated in Banjarmasin and was scheduled to fly to Bandung (JT-945), Denpasar (JT-904) and back to Bandung (JT-905). The aircraft carried 101 passengers and 7 crew.

Radar data confirm the aircraft was approaching runway 09 and suggest the aircraft was about 100 feet below a 3 degrees glidepath descending at 700 feet per minute at a speed between 126 and 135 knots over ground, descending through 200 feet MSL about 1nm short of the touch down zone and 0.6nm short of the sea wall.

[ITman]

So why has the plane no horizontal stabilser, it clearly missing in all the pictures. !!

[kookaburra]

I'd suggest the horizontal stabilizer would be under the water in that attitude and with a crack in it's back.
Missing or detatched ... Unlikely.

[Iver]

Why couldn't the 500-hour, pay-for-training First Officer been more helpful? :p:eek::}

Glad to see nobody killed and look forward to seeing the accident report and likely cause. Hope this is a wake-up call but doubt it will be....

[FFRATS]

Easy to see its in the drink at the WEST of DPS Airport. The other end, East side and also end of RWY09 is swamp then a bay not where the photos show the Surf breaks Airports Lefts and Rights start :ugh:
FFRATS

[captjns]

You know those Boeings on order? They're replacement aircraft:{... not for fleet expansion. Good thing the bottom feeder hasn't killed anybody yet.:ok:

[halas]

Tail plane ripped off as they were intending to land on 09 but hit the water first :confused::confused::confused:

halas

[Iver]

Good thing Lionair ordered hundreds of Airbus A320/21 aircraft - they say Airbus aircraft were designed to keep 3rd World pilots from killing themselves...:}. You don't see Air Asia losing many Airbus airframes...

[VH-Cheer Up]

It looks more like an undershoot than an overshoot.

[framer]

The hori stab is visible in the photos.

[Tankengine]

Right hand horizontal stab and top of right winglet appear torn off.

[Capt Fathom]

Right hand horizontal stab and top of right winglet appear torn off.

They just don't build them like they used to! :E

[jack s]

http://gerryairways.********.sg/2013/04/lion-air-737-800-undershoots-and-ends.html
here is good assesment

[framer]

Thanks Jack. That was informative. The link didn't work so I googled the blog. Cheers.

[John Citizen]

With at least 6 accidents (including several write off's) since start up, you can understand part of the reason why they have such large aircraft orders :E

[BECMG]

My guess is Windshear.Man are those pax lucky o wat.

[629bus]

My guess us fuel exhaustion. No visible slick of any kind in the water. Configured but landed short in water.

[BECMG]

Funny....I said Windshear and then I found this
Thai crash investigators from the Thailand Department of Civil Aviation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Civil_Aviation_%28Thailand%29) initially speculated that wind shear was the cause of the crash. Two years later, National Transportation Safety Board (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Transportation_Safety_Board) (NTSB) reported that wind shear was not a factor in the crash.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Two-GO_Airlines_Flight_269#cite_note-NTSB_Report-1)
A two-year investigation by NTSB resulted in a report [1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Two-GO_Airlines_Flight_269#cite_note-NTSB_Report-1) mainly incorporated into the crash report published by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Accident_Investigation_Committee) of the Ministry of Transport (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Transport_%28Thailand%29).[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Two-GO_Airlines_Flight_269#cite_note-DCAT_Report-2) Both reports found that the Captain and First Officer had worked hours vastly in excess of the legal flight limits; that the first officer attempted to transfer control to the captain during the go-around; that neither pilot initiated a go-around and that the training and safety programs at the airline were deficient


One-Two-GO Airlines Flight 269 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Two-GO_Airlines_Flight_269)

An eerie reminder.

[WYOMINGPILOT]

It resembles the Non-Precision flown straight into the water approach. Maybe they busted minimums and continued downward without enough altitude for a go-around with the GPWS screaming at them. This has happened several times recently in Asia.

[Capt Fathom]

A lot of guessing going on!

Is it some sort of ego thing where people want to be patted on the back for coming up with the correct guess.....months before any investigation is finalised!

It really is embarrassing.

[ia1166]

I agree.

There really is a load of old tosh on this and the main thread site.

Please can we give a colleague of ours the benefit of the doubt until we know some facts.

Pilots, we all think we're Chuck Yaeger, but we're not. None of us are infallible gents. None of us. Please think of the captain and his family, and the fact that noone was seriously injured.

And stop comparing other airlines. We are not informed or paid enough to talk in public on such stuff.

[jetjockey696]

An early probe by the National Committee for Transportation Safety (KNKT) points to undershooting the runway as the cause of a Lion Air plane that landed in the sea on Saturday, an investigator said on Sunday.

“The possible cause is undershoot. We are still looking at why the plane undershot the runway,” Masruri, head of the KNKT’s air transport accidents research department, told reporters.

The KNKT is still looking for the plane’s cockpit voice recorder, which documents conversations between pilots. The investigation team has found already found the flight data recorder, which saves all data related to pilot commands.

“If possible, we want it [the CVR] to be found today and it will be brought directly to Jakarta to be decrypted,” Masruri said, adding that divers were looking for it.

The KNKT is also dragging the Boeing 737-800 NG, which split in two during the crash, ashore, in order for a deeper investigation to be conducted.

Suyanto, a member of the KNKT team, said the investigators will study the crash site to determine how to minimize the damage to coral reefs in the area when they drag the plane from the sea.

Herry Bakti S. Gumay, air transportation director general at the Transportation Ministry, said he had suspended Capt. Mahlup Gozali, who was flying Saturday’s plane, for two weeks based on standard operating procedures. Herry also said Gozali had taken a drug and alcohol test.

“The result is negative,” Herry said.

He added that as of Sunday afternoon seven passengers were still being treated for injuries sustained in the crash.

Daniel Putut, a director at Lion Air, said the company will bear the victims’ hospital fees.

“We provide the best hospitals,” he said.

Daniel said that Lion Air will also take responsibility for the environment impacts and had prepared 200 drums to contain the spilled aviation fuel.

The flight on Saturday was carrying 108 people, including 95 adults, five children, one baby and seven crew members, all of whom survived the accident.

Jakarta Globe... 14/04/2013

[WYOMINGPILOT]

Looking more and more like the proverbial Non-Precision flown straight into the water. The Captain took over and continued the approach and flew it straight into the water.

the co-pilot lost sight of the runway as heavy rain drove across the windshield. The captain, an Indonesian citizen with about 15,000 hours experience and an instructor's license, took the controls.
Between 400 and 200 feet, pilots described flying through a wall of water, according to the source. Bursts of heavy rainfall and lost visibility are not uncommon in the tropics but the aircraft's low height meant the crew had little time to react.
With no sight of the runway lights or markings, the captain decided to abort the landing and perform a "go around", a routine maneuver for which all pilots are well trained.
But the captain told officials afterwards that instead of climbing, the brand-new 737 started to sink uncontrollably.

[brasmelzuit]

the MDA is 470ft... add another 50ft for go round preparation, did it mean he flew below mda without visual to runway?

[Mareklug]

Is the following statement true?

"This is the first time in history that a full-sized passenger jet crash-landed directly in the open sea without fatalities."

And if so, how would one go about documenting it with a reliable source (book, trade magazine article, officially published statistics, database result)?

[777boeings]

Can I suggest we merge this with the thread on Rumours & News?

[Xorthis]

My almost amateur reckoning on this would say that they reached the minimums with runway in sight and then a "sudden wall of water" meant they lost sight of the runway below the minimums? The aircraft not responding to the command for increased thrust is a very familiar situation in previous short landings however.

But like stated best wait for the official report in a few months. Anything else is just speculation. Also, as a westerner who lives in Indonesia, I've learned to never trust a word that comes through the Indonesian press; they think youtube and facebook are reliable sources.

[jetjockey696]

The Lion Air pilot whose Indonesian jet slumped into the sea while trying to land in Bali has described how he felt it “dragged” down by wind while he struggled to regain control, a person familiar with the matter said.

All 108 passengers and crew miraculously survived when the Boeing 737 passenger jet, operated by Indonesian budget carrier Lion Air, undershot the tourist island’s main airport runway and belly-flopped in water on Saturday.

Officials stress it is too early to say what caused the incident, which is being investigated by Indonesian authorities with the assistance of US crash investigators and Boeing.

But initial debriefings, witness comments and weather reports have focused attention on the possibility of “wind shar” or a downdraft from storm clouds known as a “microburst.”

Although rare, experts say such violent and unpredictable gusts can leave even the most modern jet helpless if they are stronger than the plane’s ability to fly out of trouble — with the critical moments before landing among the most vulnerable.

“If you have a downdraft which exceeds the performance of the plane, then even if you put on full thrust you will go downhill and you can’t climb out,” said Hugh Dibley, a former British Airways captain and expert on loss-of-control events.

The cause of the crash has potential implications for the reputation of one of the world’s fastest-growing airlines, which is fighting to be removed from a European Union safety black list even as it buys record volumes of Airbus and Boeing jets.

According to initial pilot debriefings, details of which have been described to Reuters, flight JT-904 was on an eastwards approach to Bali’s Ngurah Rai Airport at mid-afternoon on Saturday following a normal flight from Bandung, West Java.

The co-pilot, an Indian national with 2,000 hours of relevant flying experience, was in charge for the domestic trip, which was scheduled to last one hour and 40 minutes.

Heavy rain

As the Lion Air plane was coming in to land, with an aircraft of national carrier Garuda following behind and another about to take off on the runway just ahead, the co-pilot lost sight of the runway as heavy rain drove across the windshield.

The captain, an Indonesian citizen with about 15,000 hours experience and an instructor’s license, took the controls.

Between 122 and 61 meters, pilots described flying through a wall of water, according to the source. Bursts of heavy rainfall and lost visibility are not uncommon in the tropics but the aircraft’s low height meant the crew had little time to react.

With no sight of the runway lights or markings, the captain decided to abort the landing and perform a “go around,” a routine maneuver for which all pilots are well trained.

But the captain told officials afterwards that instead of climbing, the brand-new 737 started to sink uncontrollably.

From 200 feet, well-practiced routines unravelled quickly.

“The captain says he intended to go around but that he felt the aircraft dragged down by the wind; that is why he hit the sea,” said the source, who was briefed on the crew’s testimony.

“There was rain coming east to west; very heavy,” the source said, asking not to be named because no one is authorized to speak publicly about the investigation while it is under way.

However, Erasmus Kayadu, the head of Ngurah Rai International Airport’s weather station, said there was no rain during the crash period and that visibility was 10 kilometers.

The weather station’s data showed the wind speed was 11 kilometers per hour with lots of low cloud cover, including dense storm clouds, said Kayadu, who is involved in the investigation.

A passenger on board the jet painted a picture of an aircraft getting into difficulty only at the last minute.

“There was no sign at all it would fall but then suddenly it dropped into the water,” Tantri Widiastuti, 60, told Metro TV.

Lion Air declined to comment on the cause of the crash.

Write off

According to the Flight Safety Foundation, bulletins for pilots at around that time indicated a few storm clouds at 518 meters. A moderate wind blew from the south-southeast but flicked in a wide arc from east-southeast all the way to the west.

The source said there was no immediately obvious evidence of pilot or technical error but investigators will pore over the speed and other settings, as well as interactions between the pilots, to establish whether the crash could have been avoided.

Both pilots were given urine tests by the Indonesian police and were cleared for drugs and alcohol, the source said.

According to Indonesian media reports, five Lion Air pilots have been arrested for drugs in the past two years, raising questions over whether drug abuse or overwork are widespread.

The airline’s co-founder has denied this and told Reuters last year he was working closely with authorities to ensure Indonesia’s tough drugs laws are obeyed.

Delivered in February, the aircraft itself had only had one technical problem: a landing light that had to be replaced.

Now lying broken-backed beneath a 4.6-meter sea-wall meters short of its destination, the $89-million Boeing has been written off. It was on lease from Dublin-based firm Avolon.

Pictures of the stricken jet lying in water and the fact that all on board survived brought back images of the “Miracle on the Hudson,” in which an Airbus A320 ditched safely in New York after dramatically losing power due to a bird strike.

But industry experts say the suspected involvement of wind shear draws far more chilling parallels with the crash of a Delta Air Lines Lockheed Tristar while on approach to Dallas airport in 1985 that killed 134 passengers and crew.

Delta Flight 191 led to the creation of new warning systems and better procedures for dealing with low-level wind shear, or sudden changes of wind direction or speed.

According to Boeing, the 737-800, its most popular current model, is equipped with a “Predictive Windshear System.” On approach, an aural warning says, “Go around, windshear ahead.”

Nowadays, pilots agree the best strategy for dealing with possible wind shear is to avoid it entirely, said Dibley, who is a senior official at Britain’s Royal Aeronautical Society.

But if the “wind shear” warning blares out, the automatic response is to cancel the landing and go around again, he said.

Delicate balance

Pilots can sometimes prepare for risks, such as a possible loss of the right sort of wind on landing, by keeping a buffer of extra speed to help them get out of trouble, he said. It is a delicate balance as too much speed could make the jet overrun, which in the case of Bali means hitting a road or yet more sea.

“If your speed is too slow and you hit a downdraft you will just sink. So one question is how much extra air speed the aircraft was carrying,” Dibley said.

There was no immediate information on what cockpit signals were available to the crew, how fast the Lion Air jet was flying or what sort of scheduling roster the crew had been flying.

Reuters April 15, 2013

[jetjockey696]

Indonesian investigators Monday began retrieving the wreck of a Lion Air plane that crashed at Bali's airport, as accounts emerged of a freak storm that could have caused the accident.

The Boeing 737-800 missed the runway as it came in to land on Saturday, slamming into the sea and splitting in two. Dozens of the 108 people on board were injured, but there were no fatalities.

After the plane hit the water, terrified passengers swam to shore as police came to their aid in rubber dinghies.

Government officials and the airline said at the time of the crash that the weather had been fine.
But on Monday, transport ministry official Herry Bakti said the plane had been traveling through dense cloud at the time of the incident and one passenger told how the aircraft became engulfed in torrential rain.

French businessman Jean Grandy, 49, one of four foreigners on the plane, said that the flight from the city of Bandung in West Java had appeared to be landing smoothly.

"The final approach was fine," he told AFP.

"Then suddenly, a cloud enveloped us. Torrents of water were pouring on us, it was an enormous downpour. It only lasted two, three minutes.

"It was almost as if it was night, even though the sun had been shining just before," said Grandy.

The Frenchman, who owns a shoe factory in Indonesia and lives in Bali, said it was an "extraordinary phenomenon" that could have happened to any plane — and that he planned to fly on Lion Air again on Wednesday.

His testimony supported the views of some analysts who said that as the plane was new, a freak weather incident may have caused the crash of the Boeing 737-800 which was delivered to Lion Air only last month.

Tom Ballantyne, chief correspondent of Orient Aviation magazine, said the accident could have been caused by a change in wind direction and speed between different altitudes, or a strong downdraft from storm clouds.

"If that hit the aircraft when it was on final approach, there is the likelihood the pilots would not have had time to recover," he told AFP.

The Indonesian pilot, Mahlup Gozali, who had more than 10,000 flying hours, and the Indian co-pilot, Chiraq Carla, tested negative for drugs and alcohol in preliminary tests, a transport ministry spokesman said.

Divers were on Monday drilling a hole in the tail of the wrecked plane to retrieve the cockpit voice recorder located there, and pulling seats and other small pieces of small debris out of the water to take them ashore.

Salvage teams will be lifting the body of the plane in three parts, said Bali airport general manager Purwanto.

The tail will be lifted using a crane later Monday, and the whole operation should take two to three days to complete, said Purwanto, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

The low-budget carrier launched 13 years ago with just one plane, Lion Air has struck two of the world's largest aircraft orders in a staggering $46 billion bet on Indonesia's air transport boom.

France announced last month that the airline had agreed to buy 234 medium-haul A320 jets worth $23.8 billion from European aerospace giant Airbus.

Lion Air also astounded the industry with a $22.4 billion agreement for 230 Boeing 737 airliners, inked in 2011.

Saturday's crash has heightened fears the plans are overambitious for an airline that already has a poor reputation, suffered a string of accidents, and is banned from EU and American skies over safety fears.

Lion Air has had problems with pilots in the past. It has been randomly drug testing its crews since several pilots were arrested in recent years for possession and consumption of crystal meth.

Indonesia, which relies heavily on air transport to connect its sprawling archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, has one of Asia's worst aviation safety records. The Bali crash was the nation's fourth accident since the start of 2012.

In May last year, a Sukhoi jet, post-Soviet Russia's first passenger plane, slammed into a volcano on the outskirts of Jakarta during a demonstration flight for prospective buyers, killing all 45 on board.

Agence France-Presse April 15, 2013

[IndoLion]

Typical cover up stories, like the Padang, Pekanbaru, and Pontianak incidents

[PalmtreePilot74]

So the Frenchman is describing the airplane flying through the bottom of a Thunderstorm? That's what it sounds like:eek: They shouldn't put that kind of info out until it's determined by PROFESSIONALS the events that took place.:ugh:

[ironbutt57]

Aviation "expert" Hanna dismisses the possibility the aircraft performance was exceeded by the weather encountered..... all this before any data has been recovered... how astute!

as far as metars and witness weather "reports" go, anybody with half a brain knows it can be reported cavok by the airport and surrounded by rain showers.. so here we are the aviation professionals speculating and throwing a colleague under the bus before the facts are clear!!!! good job boys!!! Karma is abitch!!!

[jetjockey696]

Translated from Tempo.co (indonesian news network)


"Management stated Lion Air Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft pilot who crashed in Bali on Saturday to receive an award from the Boeing Company. "Mr. Ghozali, pilot, may award from Boeing," said Director of Airport Operations and Services Lion Air, Daniel Putut Kuncoro Adi, when contacted by Tempo, Thursday, April 18, 2013.

Putut not give a detailed explanation of the award. He said he would explain that after handing compensation to the victims this afternoon.

The news of awards to pilots who have won more than 10 thousand hours of flying was previously known from chirp Mahlup daughter, Sari Desita Dinda, on social networking site PPRuNe.

On April 16, 2013 at 16:35, Dinda typing PPRuNe about his father received the award from Boeing. He also put pictures Mahlup, Mahlup wife, and a strange man who was standing in the office area. "Speech award dr parusahaan Boeing: '))," the chatter Dinda.

Previously, at 10.37 o'clock, Dinda also type a PPRuNe that said her father received an award from the Chief of Bali Police. However, this time he did not put pictures, but only tag the PPRuNe spot position is typed, ie, Lion Air Tower 6th floor. "Cieee Papap the chief of police dpt dr awards bali .. so i dont care about the news in the media ...," he said".

Tempo 18/04/2013