Air Asia Indonesia Lost Contact from Surabaya to Singapore [Archive] - Page 8

BG47

11th Jan 2015, 13:01

Divers identified the location of the black box and marked the area for retrieval, Transport Ministry spokesman J.A. Barata said today, without specifying the exact location.

But they failed to retrieve it because it was stuck under debris from the main body of the plane, it added.

“The navy divers in Jadayat state boat have succeeded in finding a very important instrument, the black box of AirAsia QZ8501,” said Tonny Budiono, a senior ministry official, adding that it was at coordinate 03.37.21 South/109.42.42 East at a depth of between 30 to 32 metres.

"The black box is trapped under parts of fuselage. We will slowly move these obstacles out of the way, but if it does not succeed, we will lift the fuselage parts using a balloon like what we did to the plane's tail," Budiono said, adding that a small buoy marker had been placed at the location to make retrieval on Monday easier.

Strong ping signals were being picked up by three vessels involved in the search in the Java Sea, S.B Supriyadi, a director with the National Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters.

If weather conditions are conducive, “hopefully the vessels will recover the black box tomorrow morning,” said National Transportation Safety Committee investigator Santoso Sayogo.“The coordinates show the bottom of the sea (in that location) is sand so the divers should easily be able to see it.”

If and when the recorders are found and taken to the capital, Jakarta, for analysis, it could take up to two weeks to download data, investigators said, although the information could be accessed in as little as two days if the devices are not badly damaged

Those signals are coming from the seabed less than one kilometre from where the tail of the plane was found, Malaysian Navy chief Abdul Aziz Jaafar said in a post on Twitter. Malaysia’s Navy is helping in the search for flight QZ8501 that crashed into the sea two weeks ago, killing all 162 people on board.

But Supriyadi said powerful currents had again frustrated military divers in their search and they had to call off their efforts before sunset without reaching the origin of the signals, about 30m underwater.

“We sent divers to three spots, and they went down twice, but there is no result. They couldn’t find anything. The undercurrent was very strong,” Supriyadi said.

winterymix

11th Jan 2015, 13:11

[E.g., perhaps they unknowingly deviated into more severe weather, or got caught in a newly developing cell -- and then an still-unknown event (pilot error? systems error? structural failure?) became the probable cause of the accident.]

Discussing meteorology for a moment, convection is often fueled by daytime heating. The AirAsia event happened at sunrise. Was the convective system particularly unusual/the monsoon process particularly energetic? It seems that the AirAsia flight may have self-diverted into a rapidly developing thunderhead that blossomed up into the flight path at a rate that wasn't evident on the plane's radar. Unusual to have so much convective energy at sunrise but not impossible. It seems that recorded images of weather radar for this event merit further scrutiny.

ItsMeFromEarth

11th Jan 2015, 13:25

Weather Radar..., the number of crew unable to interprete weather radar picture is simply scary.

Algol

11th Jan 2015, 13:31

I keep hearing that allegation. These modern radars are pretty impressive compared to the crap we worked with 30 years ago, so please explain what you mean by that. The only problem I see is the rote adherence to SOPs to 'set gain to CAL right NOW' whatever the conditions ahead! Just more robo-pilot training.

Triskel

11th Jan 2015, 13:38

winterymix

11th Jan 2015, 13:42

Nice clarification about convective threats in the environment of interest. So...what did the other several flights in the area at the time of interest know or did they simply get lucky?

Almostfamous

11th Jan 2015, 13:51

"Boomtown

Quote:
With regards to the twisted and crushed metal we are seeing - early reports cited gale force winds and waves up to 5 meters high. Is anyone able to comment what those sort of storm conditions would do to a (temporarily) floating airframe?

Are those loads capable of tearing apart what is an otherwise largely intact airframe?

The short answer is no. Most damage is done when waves push an object against rocks or grind it against a rocky seabed. A loose collection of objects floating offshore can also be ground against one another by wave action causing damage primarily around the edges, but not tearing and compression damage of the sort seen in the pictures currently circulating. All the indications are that the damage was done by a high velocity impact with the sea surface."

I would concur with the no. Having been aboard a 50' boat in such conditions in water equally shallow, for stupid reasons I'm not going to get into, the impacts were severe, but not enough to break bones, bend seats, break glass, of anyone and anything secured. If you take a look at the fuselage of US 1549, it skidded across the Hudson and was bumped and hit by numerous rescue ships with metal hills and banged against the concrete wall at Battery Park, yet does not display the massive accordion crumple that we have seen in the instant incident.

Ian W

11th Jan 2015, 14:26

@Ian W, many thanks. Can I ask if you know how many Miles In Trail would be thought sensible in a popcorn-thunderstorm area that's likely to have a lot of traffic?

BTW, when I googled 'Miles in Trail', I was startled to see that your own post in this thread, from half an hour ago, was one of the top results. Google's ability to track us in real time could give the airlines a lesson.

If you want to see descriptions of flow management - known in the FAA as Traffic Management Initiatives then you could look at:

http://www.fly.faa.gov/Products/Training/Traffic_Management_for_Pilots/TFM_in_the_NAS_Booklet_ca10.pdf

Things have not changed significantly since that was written.

Nemrytter

11th Jan 2015, 14:50

Winterymix - convection intensity over the open ocean doesn't vary much day/night since sea surface temperatures have very little diurnal variation. However convection over the land not far from the LKP would decrease overnight leaving more 'airspace' over the adjacent sea for CBs to develop and peak towards dawn (without going into the broader scale MET dynamics).
This paper: Analysis of overshooting top detections by Meteosat Second Generation: a 5-year dataset - Proud - 2014 - Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society - Wiley Online Library (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.2410/full) shows that, at least in Tropical waters off Africa, convection peaks at around 08 or 09 local time. In the ocean far from land it's around midnight and over land it's in the evening. The same is, at least on the day of the accident, true for the region around Indonesia/Singapore. Because there's so much land over there the sea is never truly isolated so we get the 'coastal' convection system with peak intensity around daybreak.
Nice clarification about convective threats in the environment of interest. So...what did the other several flights in the area at the time of interest know or did they simply get lucky?I think a better question (assuming that weather was a factor) would be: What made this particular flight unlucky?

Ian W

11th Jan 2015, 14:52

Ian W and Air Scotia :

Maybe in the USA where there is an old " CB avoidance" culture and ATFM ( Flow management) organised through a single command centre which has direct access to the US Air Force areas .
Europe is also equipped with an advanced centralized ATFM system , but does not have the same weather pattern as in the equator/tropics or continental US. and there are 40+ airforces around to deal with.

A totally different picture that what is going on the rest of the world unfortunately , and definitively in South East Asia , where each Sate has its own air force and where countries are suspicious of one another and do not cooperate.

ATC is there to separate aircraft from one another also aircraft from penetrating reserved or restricted areas, and to comply with restrictions and demands made by teh next sectors( control centres) .

There is no standard " Miles in trail " separation applied by all. They vary depending on location and surveillance capabilities. , it can be 5 NM . can be 100 Miles (15 minutes) . It can be 5 NM in one sector , and 10 minutes at the transfer point for the next sector in a different Control Centre no equipped with same capabilities. Once established controllers have to follow that.

But, once again , the pilot has the decision on weather avoidance, not ATC . The pilot(s) can see in real time what the actual weather is , ATC cannot. If a request for deviation ( laterally or vertical ) cannot be approved by ATC ( due e.g. restricted or dangerous areas penetration or simply other traffic ) the PIC can deviate on his own bu just declaring on the R/T , " unable, turning or climbing now ". This then becomes an emergency situation , and ATC will help clearing the way. The PIC is always ultimately responsible for the safety of his flight.

To come back to this Air Asia case, I have seen no indication so far that the Pilot of this flight did not jut do that, but he did not tell ATC, so for me I think there must be something else, or the initial request to deviate came much too late.

I will pick up a few points from what you say:

Yes FAA, NAV Canada, and the Member States of ECAC - EUROCONTROL, Air Services Australia have fully fledged Traffic Flow Management (TFM) Systems. Under ICAO coordinated flow management is being developed with GREPECAS, the states of Caribbean and South America. The Asian Pacific Region Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSP) are aware that they do not have a networked TFM system and work is in hand using the auspices of ICAO to put one in place (see http://www.icao.int/APAC/Meetings/2014%20ATMSG2/AI4%20WP09%20Air%20Traffic%20Flow%20Management%20Steering%20 Group%20Outcomes%20with%20attachment.pdf )

Miles/Minutes in trail are going to be different as the aircraft moves from surveillance based control to non-radar procedural time based control. In consequence the flow management at boundaries between these sectors becomes complex. As surveillance based control normal separation minima are considerably smaller than procedural.

The statement "The pilot(s) can see in real time what the actual weather is , ATC cannot." is not necessarily correct - and even if true it is too simplistic to just avoid the next heavy rain radar return. Both the pilot and the controller may be able to see weather, their systems are different so they will see different weather. The controller can also see a lot further ahead and can see sucker traps where some flight paths would lead into dead ends, the controller also may have had lots of PIREPS on turbulence. The controller's weather comes from different radars so it will present weather information that is hidden from the aircraft radar by attenuation. It makes real sense for both the controllers and the pilots to work together there is no competition, both want the same outcome and the pilot should accept any help that can be offered.

If the weather is getting a bit too exciting then the pilot should say so early don't wait till things are really bad or until ATC gives you an instruction you can't take. If you can tell the controller that the weather is looking really bad ahead of you or to one side and you may need to take some avoiding action, then the controller will start ensuring that other traffic is kept clear of both you and the weather you are reporting.

The time for 'Communicate' is before things get so bad that all you can do is 'Aviate' then perhaps things won't get to that stage.

chefrp

11th Jan 2015, 15:01

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7Exxw6IQAIelwy.jpg:large

Ihsanush Shabri

11th Jan 2015, 15:29

QZ blackbox has been found on coordinate 03.37.21 S/109.42.42 E with depth of about 30 to 32 meters

Tim Penyelam TNI AL Berhasil Temukan Kotak Hitam AirAsia (http://nasional.news.viva.co.id/news/read/577073-tim-penyelam-tni-al-berhasil-temukan-kotak-hitam-airasia?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook)

langleybaston

11th Jan 2015, 15:50

QUOTE:
Winterymix - convection intensity over the open ocean doesn't vary much day/night since sea surface temperatures have very little diurnal variation. However convection over the land not far from the LKP would decrease overnight leaving more 'airspace' over the adjacent sea for CBs to develop and peak towards dawn (without going into the broader scale MET dynamics).
This paper: Analysis of overshooting top detections by Meteosat Second Generation: a 5-year dataset - Proud - 2014 - Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society - Wiley Online Library shows that, at least in Tropical waters off Africa, convection peaks at around 08 or 09 local time. In the ocean far from land it's around midnight and over land it's in the evening. The same is, at least on the day of the accident, true for the region around Indonesia/Singapore. Because there's so much land over there the sea is never truly isolated so we get the 'coastal' convection system with peak intensity around daybreak.
Quote:
Nice clarification about convective threats in the environment of interest. So...what did the other several flights in the area at the time of interest know or did they simply get lucky?
I think a better question (assuming that weather was a factor) would be: What made this particular flight unlucky?

All the above omits mention of the other driver for rapid high level CB development. That is cooling from above, rather than heating from below. Cold advection [wind backing with height] can and does throw petrol on the fire of a hitherto modest CB. Believe me, it happens.

jcjeant

11th Jan 2015, 16:30

Hi,

With all the photos of aircraft parts available so far .. my feeling is a flat ditching of those parts .. little forward speed ... (my two cents)
Can't wait the analysis result of "black boxes" .........

bille1319

11th Jan 2015, 16:50

Change the frequency - Remember this is not radio this is sonar a lower frequency in water has a lot more range.
Change the pulse recurrence frequency so that there is one pulse every minute or even every 3 minutes by charging a capacitor bank then discharge that for a greater power outputEncode the signal with the last position from the DFDR/GPS and the aircraft ID

You're right that VLF at 8Khz would give better range than 37Khz but not much more, certainly not in terms on NMs. Water presents just too much attenuation unless the source uses enormous power.

What of the idea that the ULB remains asleep until it is interrogated so extending battery life. , much like transponders that are used by Offshore oil and gas vessels which a give an xyz position Extra information could also be supplied easily depending on the firmware used. All this technology is already available but would imagine it would take years to get through CAA legislation.

Machinbird

11th Jan 2015, 16:50

If the crew failed to find the weather on radar that likely took them down, the first warning would likely be the sound of ice pellets hitting he aircraft.

Most of my tactical jet XC work (ancient history) was without available weather radar. The only operational restrictions applied from on high was, "do not fly into Weather Warning areas." As a result, we had the opportunity to fly into and through some otherwise interesting weather. Other than some spectacular St Elmo's fire, it was not that exciting.

For the meteorologists here, did conditions in the ITCZ on the airway that day equate to WW level storm intensity?

I'm betting that the weather is more likely to have interfered with the aircraft's sensors and thus precipitated this accident.

Machinbird

11th Jan 2015, 17:10

With all the photos of aircraft parts available so far .. my feeling is a flat ditching of those parts .. little forward speed ... (my two cents)
Can't wait the analysis result of "black boxes" .........
Yes, I'm reading the wreckage as a flat impact with wings (+- 15 degrees) of level and low forward speed. This corresponds to a flat spin.

One ominous aspect of flat spins is the eyeballs out g that results from the rotation. This would rapidly disable the crew, particularly if they did not have their shoulder harness locked.

How to get into a flat spin? Not hard once you get real slow. Compressor stall one engine while at high power and high AOA.

captains_log

11th Jan 2015, 18:08

If this helps anyone ive matched up the tail to approximately where it fits to the rear section.

http://i60.tinypic.com/20l17q8.jpg

formationdriver

11th Jan 2015, 18:14

Ian W

11th Jan 2015, 18:14

Yes, I'm reading the wreckage as a flat impact with wings (+- 15 degrees) of level and low forward speed. This corresponds to a flat spin.

One ominous aspect of flat spins is the eyeballs out g that results from the rotation. This would rapidly disable the crew, particularly if they did not have their shoulder harness locked.

How to get into a flat spin? Not hard once you get real slow. Compressor stall one engine while at high power and high AOA.

You don't need a compressor stall - high AOA and a small input to the rudder can put you into a spin relatively quickly. It was the standard method to enter a spin way back. Do it a fraction before the stall and you can have max lift on one wing and the other stalled. I would think that one of the Normal Law protections would stop you getting there unless it was all tied up with an overspeed protection because of a sudden increase in OAT.

I wonder if we are getting to a point where test pilots are going to be required to test departures from the flight envelope to see how the aircraft behaves and how to get it back? Otherwise a LOC for whatever reason that puts the aircraft immediately out of the envelope requires the crew involved to become test pilot capable in seconds.

Ian W

11th Jan 2015, 18:21

"MACHINBIRD" IMHO if you'd ever done a flat spin, you wouldn't write :"One ominous aspect of flat spins is the eyeballs out g that results from the rotation. This would rapidly disable the crew, particularly if they did not have their shoulder harness locked."

I 've been teaching aerobatics and spin recovery ( positive, inverted, and positive flat and inverted) spins (in CAT "A" aerobatic airplanes...) for over 20 years and both my eyeballs are securely in place, or so say my FAA and JAR-FCL medicals.

Wouldn't the g experience in the cockpit depend very much on the center of rotation of the fuselage? In a Cat A aerobatic aircraft the cockpit is not a lot forward and indeed may be on the center of rotation - probably with the design intent to reduce g when the aircraft is rotating. Now in a larger non-aerobatic aircraft that is not a design decision.

pipeliner

11th Jan 2015, 18:28

There is no where near enough wreckage for me to start concluding what the impact angles or energy may have been. However, there is one piece of evidence that has come in and must be taken into account. With the destruction of the aft pressure bulkhead I don't think it is possible that the impact of the tail was low energy. One POSSibility may be that the tail came down as a separate piece and the open end of the tube hit first with the hydraulic effect opening the pressure bulkhead and the bottom of the fuselage.

Mr Optimistic

11th Jan 2015, 19:09

VS damage: sideways on impact, starboard side down :confused:

Edit: with linear witness mark from subsequent impact with port HS?

MrSnuggles

11th Jan 2015, 19:12

I have been wondering about this strange tail section torn off and went and took a look at a pretty recent water event - this one with a very successful outcome for everyone onboard. Also an A320.

Sorry, the pictures are small but I have links to highres pics at the end of the post.

Notice the similarity in the tail section. This is fron the transport of the recovered plane so no stabilizers...

http://telstarlogistics.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834543b6069e201127910934e28a4-pi

The actual plane on the museum. Stabilizers are put back to place. Surprisingly similar damage as seen on AirAsia.

http://s3-media1.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/ZHRc6a2kQlpJLO5e2ZSvng/ls.jpg

Some links to highres photos:

http://journeysbyjill.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/img_0168.jpg

http://smithsonianscience.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Flight-1549.jpg

http://tinyurl.com/m978xrt (http://2.bp.********.com/-qOMLA8_pq5Y/T9jZcKkmsZI/AAAAAAAAANY/1B_OkSpv_Uc/s1600/photo+%252835%2529.JPG)

EDIT; Seems like the last picture won't show properly sometimes. I have saved it on my computer if someone is really really interested...

EDIT 2: Followed advice and used tinyurl.

susier

11th Jan 2015, 19:27

I can no longer find the NTSB report for 1549. Angle of the plane on impact would be interesting for those of us unfamiliar with it, if anyone can recall. Believe speed was approx. 153kt.

boofhead

11th Jan 2015, 19:42

MrSnuggles

11th Jan 2015, 20:02

Here is, I believe, the full report:

http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR1003.pdf

I just found another angle showing how/why an aircraft can be ripped apart from below...

http://blog.flightstory.net/wp-content/uploads/us1549-fuselage-damage.jpg

formationdriver

11th Jan 2015, 20:04

Good point, IAN G, about center of rotation. But, as you know, its real tough to get into a flat spin... which requires deliberately held full back stick (as AF# 447) AND out-spin aileron, i.e. a crew trying to stop the spin with ailerons (toward the high wing) instead of rudder. Anyone who has ANY unusual attitude/spin training KNOWS this is wrong. Dead wrong. From the French BEA report, AF # 447 wasn't in a spin, but a long (4 minute...) falling leaf configuration... in and out of stall, with wings alternately rising and falling as the nose remained close to, or above, critical AOA.

fireflybob

11th Jan 2015, 20:17

Leightman 957

11th Jan 2015, 20:35

Safety vs cost and who decides: Black boxes have nothing to do with safety other than supplying new knowledge to prevent a similar future event. Ingenuity as per IanW, not bales of money, should be aimed at crash location improvements. But focusing money, attention, and ingenuity on wreckage location is attention not aimed directly at accident cause. Crash location improvements directed by hindsight have to wait for identical circumstances to recur, but even then black boxes cannot fully inform about the nature or extent of pilot confusion.

While holding the interest of many (including me), exactly how 8501 impacted the ocean is in many ways irrelevant to 'safety' because final impact most resulted from loss of control long before. Impact speed and attitude were not chosen by the 8501 pilots (unless Mr Snuggles is on to something). Falling leaf, spin, flat spin, or other descent profiles are mostly irrelevant because pilots don't train for them and pax jets aren't designed to complete or withstand recovery from them.

Accidents are ~0.001% (or pick a tiny %) of all flights. Some accidents such as airframe failure resulting from completely unforeseen forces or airframe inadequacies are unavoidable, but they get included in the 0.001%. 'Normal' rarely applies. What does usually apply is a confluence of events/circumstances peaking, like ocean rogue waves, in a very short amount of time, from a few seconds to hardly more than a minute. The last opportunity to avoid an accident is the time between the next to last and last decisions in a short chain. Accidents seemingly surrounded by normality, and accidents of an exceedingly rare confluence of factors, both share pilot confusion and inattention as high ranking primal causes.

One improvement would be better real time wx information (Langleybaston and ATC Watcher) to avoid the series of brand new surprises involved in 'picking your way through'. But there are numerous previous posts about the current limitations of both equipment and the operators of that equipment. Horizontal separation of five or fifteen miles from preceding flights no guarantee of identical weather.

The best solution would be to focus attention on how to elongate the time available to pilots to react to conditions to enable good decisions, better real time wx being one aspect. Time elongation is otherwise currently and systemically limited by both a very narrow range between overspeed and stall, and by momentary (where 60 seconds is a long time) failure of necessary instrumentation or agreement of automation components. More pilot time for thinking would prevent some accidents, time not currently available as events prove. My point is that accident prevention can't ignore the coffin corner of time, so while time needs to be addressed, the impediments are systemic. IanW's last paragraph in 1784 also applies.

Great set of Flt 1549 pics in MrSnuggles posts! Actual Utoob videos of the event show the angle of fuselage to water, which was notably glass smooth. The same impact angle where the point of impact chanced to be 20-30' fwd of that of 1549, and with the impact being not glass smooth but a 15' swell/wave instead could have holed the fuselage bottom of 8501 and directed a torrent of water into the fuselage, overpressuring the upper fuselage, parting the lower half of pressure bulkhead, and carrying away the aft floor, horizontal stab mounts (which escaped in 1549), FDR and APU. A lot of "could have's" remain.

B4MJ

11th Jan 2015, 20:38

Have to agree with boofhead about the old radars. The "C" band would punch through everything and give you a clear picture of what lay behind the storm immediately ahead. Definition was absolutely superb. It was a sad day when they were removed for "progress" (cheaper).

blueskydude

11th Jan 2015, 20:42

I'm new to the blog, but very experienced with "old" radar. Many would argue that the old green screen radar scopes were more accurate. I agree in part, but I do not recall ever seeing a control tower or aircraft on the ground. I will admit I did not like the new digital color radar when it first emerged many years ago. In all fairness I always wanted to compare the old with the new in numerous difficult situations. Having 37 years with the airlines added greatly to my decision making process when interpreting course corrections for weather.

If you don't have this skill, avoid the situation to begin with or declare an EMERGENCY and turn around.

susier

11th Jan 2015, 20:50

Many thanks Mr. S, for the Hudson report link :)

Looks as if the pitch was 9.5 degrees and speed was 125kts, so I was mistaken about that.

Airbus ditching parameters:

'The January 21, 1988, Airbus certification test report stated that the fuselage of an A320 would "undergo no destruction liable to create a water passage" if the airplane ditched with the following parameters:

landing gear retracted,
11° pitch,
-0.5° glideslope, and
flaps in landing configuration for minimum speed.

According to Airbus, the ditching certification criteria also assumed that engine power was available, that the descent rate was 3.5 feet per second (fps), and that the airplane landed longitudinal to any water swells. These criteria are consistent with the test results published in the NACA reports.'

There are similarities in that FR66 and aft of that were most severely affected (that is the point just forward of the rear door) however the VS was not caused to detach in that incident.

This point is interesting:

'As discussed previously, because of the operational difficulty of ditching within the Airbus ditching parameters and the additional difficulties that water swells and/or high winds may cause, it is very likely that, in general, after ditching an A320 airplane without engine power, the "probable structural damage and leakage" will include significant aft fuselage breaching and subsequent water entry into the aft area of the airplane. Therefore, it should be assumed that, after a ditching, water entry will prevent the aft exits and slide/rafts from being available for use during an evacuation.'

Ber Nooly

11th Jan 2015, 21:21

Regarding convection and why this flight had problems whilst others didn't, I feel it could have something to do with the fact that it was at a lower level (FL320) than any other flight (FL340-380).

In equatorial oceanic cumulonimbus, updraft strength can be enhanced above FL200 due to heat of sublimation of ice. Therefore it is possible that somewhere above this height and up to near FL320 the updrafts were especially strong but also still containing some supercooled water droplets and hence icing (observations showed -29 C at FL320, but in updrafts it could have been several degrees warmer than that). Flights higher up (-35 C at FL340, -40 C at FL360) were more unlikely to encounter supercooled water, therefore they may have escaped.

So, for 8501, possible airframe/sensor icing, affecting performance as the plane climbed to higher levels, and possible some ice crystal engine shutdown then to finish the job?

I have done a detailed analysis here (https://irishweatheronline.wordpress.com/2014/12/29/indonesia-air-asia-8501-a-meteorological-analysis/).

4Greens

11th Jan 2015, 21:42

Ber Nooly,

The higher you are the less airspeed due mach limitations. Hence less control surface effectiveness.

Ber Nooly

11th Jan 2015, 21:46

4Greens

That's what I mean. Performance is compromised due to the combination of icing and altitude.

JSmithDTV

11th Jan 2015, 22:31

@neville_nobody

I don't think that Qatar's idea of recording cockpit voices then saving in a company controlled data centre is really going to do much other than get more pilots fired.

Interesting that on a pilots forum that this is a concern... shouldn't the concern be elsewhere?

xcitation

11th Jan 2015, 22:33

Quote: DaveReidUK
Sorry, but the world doesn't work that way. Safety is always a tradeoff against cost.

With all due respect in this case you are wrong.
We are not talking about ejector seats for every passenger. Just agreement by commercial airlines to use what Inmarsat are offering for free - a basic location service. Nor are we talking about full flight data telemetry by the micro-second that some nerds want.

onetrack

11th Jan 2015, 23:30

For those speculating intensely over the style of damage to the tail - you might want to see the following photos of the tail recovery from the Java Sea.
It wasn't lifted on board carefully, as it should have been - it was dragged aboard the recovery ship via a low-mounted winch with a horizontal winch cable.
This technique shows the Indonesians are inadequately prepared for wreckage recovery, with a shortage of adequate marine craneage, and they care little about preserving the wreckage in "as-found" condition, to be able to figure out impact forces, angles, speed, etc.
They are obviously relying on the FDR to provide all the info they need as regards the flight path and impact attitude.

http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2015/01/12/1227181/644994-8eff230e-999d-11e4-b380-6759e7d08be1.jpg

http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2015/01/12/1227181/643464-84c24204-999d-11e4-b380-6759e7d08be1.jpg

http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2015/01/12/1227181/643435-735ee85a-999d-11e4-b380-6759e7d08be1.jpg

AirScotia

11th Jan 2015, 23:45

This technique shows the Indonesians are inadequately prepared for wreckage recovery,

Given the number of accidents in Indonesian waters (mainly ferries), you'd think they'd be experts. But presumably they rarely bother to retrieve the wreckage.

I'm surprised the tail wasn't at least contained in some kind of netting to keep the pieces together.

md80fanatic

12th Jan 2015, 00:00

In that last picture the aft exit isn't doubled over as it was in subsequent photos, and it looks like the VS may have been fully attached prior to recovery. I can even see a chord-wise crack forming as it is bent over the ship's stern. I wonder now about the fractured bulkhead as well.

Passenger 389

12th Jan 2015, 00:02

neville_nobody wrote: [11th Jan 2015, 06:41]

I don't think that Qatar's idea of recording cockpit voices then saving in a company controlled data centre is really going to do much other than get more pilots fired. Not hard in today's world of big data to scan everything flight conversation.
It's the beginning of the end IMHO.

JSmithDTV responded:

Interesting that on a pilots forum that this is a concern... shouldn't the concern be elsewhere?
JSmith

JSmith, why do you find that concern so unusual or "interesting"? Suppose you viewed a forum in which American police officers were discussing their professional concerns.

I'd wager a primary topic right now is recent demands to have American police officers always wear cameras and microphones while on duty, so that everything the officers say and do is recorded.

Some officers would be expressing concern how this could adversely impact them by invading privacy (e.g, recording comments about fellow employees, issues at home, or even that pretty female dispatcher). It also could lead to management overhearing adverse comments about supervisors or political figures, which might result in some officers being disciplined or fired.

Few, if any, employees are thrilled about having management monitoring every word said, let alone potentially storing it in a permanent (and searchable) database. Airline pilots are no different.

Access to CVRs presently is limited to serious incidents. Pilots understandably prefer to keep it that way. The concern expressed by Neville_Nobody is that if real-time streaming begins, it will be impossible to maintain that level of protection, regardless of what promises are made initially.

That seems like a legitimate concern, and certainly well within the bounds of what is an "appropriate" post on a professional pilot forum. (Speaking as a passenger who has a personal interest in airline safety, yet also recognizes the perils of surrendering all of our rights and privacy in exchange for an illusion of safety.)

peekay4

12th Jan 2015, 00:04

This technique shows the Indonesians are inadequately prepared for wreckage recovery, with a shortage of adequate marine craneage, and they care little about preserving the wreckage in "as-found" condition, to be able to figure out impact forces, angles, speed, etc.
Umm, they actually have engineers from Airbus advising. I believe the general plan is to cut up the tail section into several pieces and then ship them to Jakarta.

AirScotia

12th Jan 2015, 00:13

Ian W

12th Jan 2015, 00:32

It can't be beyond technical capabilities to stream both CVR and FDR, but keep the voice channel private, separate and only accessible with legal permissions.

For example, the voice data could be sent encrypted while the technical data is unencrypted, with the voice recording only able to be opened via a decryption code embedded in the FDR data. That way, it would only be accessed under the same circumstances under which CVRs are accessed today. After all, the main information that's needed is the technical data - I doubt many pilots' last words include co-ordinates?

I suspect that for commercial reasons all the data would be encrypted. There is no reason for the airline to hold the decryption key that could be held by a trusted third party repository say IATA. It would be possible for the data to require two decryption keys one from the repository and one from the airline. So access is only possible in the case of an accident and not for random trawling by bored airline management.

chefrp

12th Jan 2015, 00:33

Some officers would be expressing concern how this could adversely impact them by invading privacy (e.g, recording comments about fellow employees, issues at home, or even that pretty female dispatcher). It also could lead to management overhearing adverse comments about supervisors or political figures, which might result in some officers being disciplined or fired.

Ummm, this is being proposed to stop police brutality...not sure this is relevant to voice cockpit streaming debate.

Furthermore, in this day and age all of us are held under scrutiny in our daily lives/jobs to act a certain way. I can be fired now for saying something inappropriate at work. Your argument not to have this technology is to protect those that cant act professionally on the job? :ugh:

training wheels

12th Jan 2015, 00:34

Qatar Airways is already testing live streaming of black box data according to this article.

Qatar Airways already testing live black box uploads | Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2015/01/10/qatar-airways-already-testing-live-black-box-uploads/)

AirScotia

12th Jan 2015, 00:49

I suspect that for commercial reasons all the data would be encrypted. There is no reason for the airline to hold the decryption key that could be held by a trusted third party repository say IATA. It would be possible for the data to require two decryption keys one from the repository and one from the airline. So access is only possible in the case of an accident and not for random trawling by bored airline management.

Yes, that's an excellent way to do it. It's probably wise to encrypt it all anyway, so that nothing can be intercepted by a hostile third party. My main point was that the pilot-sensitive data would not be accessed unless regulatory permission was obtained. There should be no reason for pilots to be alarmed.

The regs would probably mandate that all data be destroyed / deep-archived within a set timeframe.

md80fanatic

12th Jan 2015, 00:56

Umm, they actually have engineers from Airbus advising.

Am I the only one who finds this to be highly irregular? Until the exact cause of this accident is known, is it proper to have engineers from the manufacturer, an obvious interested party in the outcome, advising on the (mis)handling of the evidence? :suspect:

glendalegoon

12th Jan 2015, 01:04

would be a trusted third party repository?

peekay4

12th Jan 2015, 01:08

Am I the only one who finds this to be highly irregular? Until the exact cause of this accident is known, is it proper to have engineers from the manufacturer, an obvious interested party in the outcome, advising on the (mis)handling of the evidence?

Civil accident investigations in most (but not all) ICAO countries are based on mutual cooperation from all the interested parties. That's because the intent is not to assign "blame" or "liability" but to find the root cause of the accident so we can improve aviation safety for all.

Airbus (and Boeing) would rather find something wrong and definitely fix it, than having rumours that they covered up a flaw and that their planes are suspected to be unsafe. If the public cannot have confidence in the manufacturer, that's the quickest way for them to lose customers. Besides, even if Airbus were to be found to be at fault, they have insurance to cover any liabilities.

A safety investigation is very different than criminal proceedings in many countries. In Indonesia (similar to the US), any wreckage / evidence sensitive to investigations will be under control of the country's transportation safety board -- unless and until a criminal element is found.

In other countries (such as Italy, Japan), accidents are treated as criminal cases first, and will be under the jurisdiction of police with very strict custody handling / chain of evidence procedures, until criminal action can be definitively ruled out.

In some cases, this "interference" from police and the adversarial nature of criminal investigations have delayed and compromised safety investigations.

Australopithecus

12th Jan 2015, 01:11

On the CVR "debate": The flight deck is a closed office. In normal circumstances what is said there should stay there. There is no way a senior executive would be willing to endure the same level of potential scrutiny, so why should I?

I don't particularly care what other people are forced to endure in their workplaces. Many wrongs do not make a right.

The idea of encryption with a key held by a third party appeals to me very much.

goeasy

12th Jan 2015, 01:16

Encryption will never work as designed in all jurisdictions. Some CAA/airlines will not subscribe unless they can hold the keys. Just like some don't allow CVR erase buttons, as were prescribed in the original international agreements.

Either that or hackers will be employed to decrypt for surreptitious spying!
If implemented, I can see the newspaper transcriptions of CVR broadcasts.

Some form of DFDR upload may have some short term benefit. But will it outweigh the cost? The accident report will still take just as long to compile. All will happen is that a lot of this bad taste 'armchair investigation' will be avoided.

There is only one event in history where the black boxes haven't been found, so what is the real 'cost' advantage?

physicus

12th Jan 2015, 02:02

In this day and age, it is important that as many sources as possible can have a crack at interpreting data that is of public interest. Accidents where people are hurt or die and financial interests are at stake (i.e. all accidents) by that very definition thus are of public interest.

This is not about armchair investigators or morbid sensationalism of the public. But even when there are a few of those, what do you care? What's important is that there are checks and balances *especially* when accidents occur in parts of the world where the facts are often obscured by convenience. Just look at them heave the tail section on board of that salvage vessel. What about the lack of post mortems on the bodies found? This is an absolute disgrace and a joke of an investigation thus far.

The flight deck during critical flight phases is NOT a closed office as much as anyone cannot send whatever they please via their employers email system. It will be read and you will be fired if you engage in inappropriate conduct. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I am of course assuming that there are no airlines left unfamiliar with the concept of a sterile cockpit, and that anything private said outside the sterile phase is not made public.

A big ask, perhaps. But certainly in line with long established office rules in the majority of the world.

mmurray

12th Jan 2015, 02:15

JAKARTA - Indonesia’s search and rescue agency said on Monday morning that search teams had managed to retrieve the flight data recorder of the Indonesia AirAsia plane that crashed in the Java Sea.

“I received information from the National Transport Safety Committee (KNKT) chief that at 07.11 am, we succeeded in bringing up part of the black box that we call the flight data recorder,” Basarnas chief Bambang Soelistyo told reporters.

The cockpit voice recorder has yet to be recovered, he added.

"We confirmed this as the object has a tag number and serial – PN-2100-4043-02 and serial number SN-000556583,’’ he told reporters. "Now we are trying to locate cockpit voice recorder."

Flight QZ8501 vanished from radar screens over the northern Java Sea on Dec 28, less than half-way into a two-hour flight from Indonesia’s second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore.

- See more at: AirAsia flight QZ8501: Flight data recorder retrieved; search underway for cockpit recorder - South-east Asia News & Top Stories - The Straits Times (http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-east-asia/story/airasia-flight-qz8501-flight-data-recorder-retrieved-says-rescue-age#sthash.PWEN8Qn5.dpuf)

training wheels

12th Jan 2015, 02:16

MetroTV in Indonesia reported that it is the FDR that has been found wedged amongst the wreckage of the fuselage. The CVR has not yet been located.

Update: The FDR has now been retreived from the ocean and will be sent to Jakarta for analysis.

ana1936

12th Jan 2015, 02:17

From AirAsia flight: Divers recover flight data recorder | SBS News (http://www.sbs.com.au/news/storystream/airasia-flight-divers-recover-flight-data-recorder)

A team of Indonesian navy divers retrieved on Monday the flight data recorder from an AirAsia airliner that crashed two weeks ago, killing all 162 people on board, a government official said.

"This morning I had an official report from the national transportation safety committee. At 7:11 we had succeeded in lifting the part of the black box known as the flight data recorder," Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the search and rescue agency, told a news conference.

"We are still trying to find the cockpit voice recorder."

Flight QZ8501 vanished from radar screens over the northern Java Sea on Dec. 28, less than half-way into a two-hour flight from Indonesia's second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore.

ana1936

12th Jan 2015, 04:04

RT Breaking News: Reports that divers have located CVR

http://rt.com/news/221635-airasia-black-box-lifted/

training wheels

12th Jan 2015, 04:16

Looks like they've now found a crane to move the wreckage off the boat.

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-GJ622_AirAsi_G_20150111220801.jpg

Source: WSJ (http://www.wsj.com/articles/airasia-flight-8501-one-of-jets-black-box-recorders-is-recovered-1421034320?tesla=y&mod=e2tw)

sopwithnz

12th Jan 2015, 04:52

photo of fdr

Divers retrieve AirAsia flight data recorder - Malaysiakini (http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/286039)

HighAndFlighty

12th Jan 2015, 04:52

Messy.

http://media801.dropshots.com/photos/1242943/20150112/004849.jpg

training wheels

12th Jan 2015, 04:54

Reports coming through now that the CVR has also been located 20 meters from the FDR.

https://twitter.com/ChannelNewsAsia/status/554513961337364481/photo/1

mm43

12th Jan 2015, 05:23

Coordinates of FDRs are:-

3°37'20.7"S 109°42'43"E
3°37'21.13"S 109°42'42.45"E

Which is DFDR I am not sure, but they are 21.7 meters apart.

DrPhillipa

12th Jan 2015, 06:00

Speaking in Jakarta, Bambang Soelistyo told reporters: "I received information from the National Transport Safety Committee chief that at 07:11 (00:11 GMT), we succeeded in bringing up part of the black box that we call the flight data recorder." He said the flight data recorder was found under the wreckage of a wing.
How far away from the tail section are those coordinates? Or was it a Horizontal Stab not a Wing?

mm43

12th Jan 2015, 06:19

The Flight Data Recorders are/were 321.84°T x 1.6534 NM (3.062 km) from where the Tail Section was located.

flynerd

12th Jan 2015, 08:52

http://i57.tinypic.com/209q5vc.png

Looks in OK condition.

Livesinafield

12th Jan 2015, 08:59

3km away from the tail section , does this seem a bit far away

mcloaked

12th Jan 2015, 09:00

There are statements being made publicly even ahead of data readout from the FDR at:

Indonesia retrieves crashed AirAsia jet's flight data recorder - Channel NewsAsia (http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/flight-data-recorder/1584298.html)

S B Supriyadi, a director with the national search and rescue agency, said initial analysis of the wreckage so far recovered indicated that the plane broke apart on impact with the water.

"It exploded because of the pressure," he told reporters in the town of Pangkalan Bun on Borneo island, the search headquarters. "The cabin was pressurised and before the pressure of the cabin could be adjusted, it went down - boom. That explosion was heard in the area."

langleybaston

12th Jan 2015, 09:05

I do hope he meant imploded .......... and even that is very difficult to believe.

mcloaked

12th Jan 2015, 09:14

@langleybaston: "I do hope he meant imploded .......... and even that is very difficult to believe."

Given that the cabin pressure is usually maintained at the equivalent of a pressure altitude between 8000 and 10000 feet asl, then it would "normally" be at below sea level pressure when the cabin was almost back at the surface if no "adjustment" had been made from the pressure at cruise.

However, I have also seen comments in other reports that if the cabin enters the water with a rupture allowing water ingress at the end that first enters the water, then the opposite end (which in this case could be the tail), would have air inside that is progressively compressed during the sea entry process by the wall of water entering from the end that the water was coming in, leading to a rapidly increasing air compression in the remainder of the cabin to several bars pressure at the point of rupture. So perhaps that is what the commentator was referring to? If that was the case then only one end of the cabin would have "exploded" and examination of the complete remains of the fuselage would likely confirm or deny that hypothesis?

NigelOnDraft

12th Jan 2015, 09:23

I guess "exploded" refers to the fact the fuselage was intact i.e. a pressure vessel. When it hits the water hard, the lower surface is first distorted up / inwards, markedly reducing the "volume" of the pressure vessel. Hence pressure rises beyond the structural limit and in itself causes failures.

Given the nature of impact, I suspect it also gets into complex fluid dynamics with shockwaves etc.

All fairly academic I would think?

Metro man

12th Jan 2015, 10:12

3km away from the tail section , does this seem a bit far away

3km is the length of a runway at a decent size airport, with the speed and force of impact together with water currents it isn't really that far.

phiggsbroadband

12th Jan 2015, 10:16

Does anyone know why they are keeping the CVRs under water?

Is it so that the sea water does not evaporate, and cause a salty residue?

bud leon

12th Jan 2015, 10:24

It's a bit silly and a little ignorant to be picking the eyes out of the Indonesian response to this incident. Maybe some of the bureaucratic actions regarding permits deserve criticism, but I would say the efforts of the search and recovery teams have been pretty impressive. Maybe they don't quite have the level of experience of their western counterparts, but don't underestimate Indonesians' intelligence, toughness, determination, sense of justice, sense of respect, marine skills, and desire to make this right.

If you are just going to take barely-informed pot shots from the sidelines, it says more about you than it does about them.

bud leon

12th Jan 2015, 10:25

Does anyone know why they are keeping the CVRs under water?

Is it so that the sea water does not evaporate, and cause a salty residue?

It's to minimise exposure to oxygen, which is the chemical agent of corrosion.

BJ-ENG

12th Jan 2015, 10:33

"It exploded because of the pressure," he told reporters in the town of Pangkalan Bun on Borneo island, the search headquarters. "The cabin was pressurised and before the pressure of the cabin could be adjusted, it went down - boom. That explosion was heard in the area."

I am puzzled by this explanation and can only assume that the description given may have suffered some misunderstanding in translation. My guess is that the official is alluding to the sound of the aircraft impacting the ocean, and the pressure being that of the hydraulic surge that would have occurred on impact when water ingress through the ruptured underside of fuselage skin would have scoured through the interior, lifting the floor and bursting through fracture points developed at initial impact .

Some of the physics involved with water impacts was covered in post #3719 from the discussion of AF447 back in 2011.

http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/395105-af-447-search-resume-186.html#post6402729

The Hudson river landing (1549) is a good exemplar of the damage that hydraulic forces will induce even in seemingly benign situations (flat calm and smooth landing).

https://avtales.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/flight-1549-ntsb-photos-2.pdf

Kulverstukas

12th Jan 2015, 10:36

(Reuters) - There was no evidence to support the theory that an AirAsia airliner exploded before hitting water two weeks ago, an Indonesian transport safety investigator told Reuters on Monday.

"There is no data to support that kind of theory," said Santoso Sayogo, an investigator at the National Transportation Safety Committee.

Supriyadi, operations coordinator at the National Search and Rescue Agency, earlier told reporters that the wreckage indicated the jet "experienced an explosion" before impact due to a significant change in air pressure.

Blake777

12th Jan 2015, 10:38

Conflicting views between Barsarnas and Indonesia's Transport Safety Investigator thus far. I think it's a little previous calling an "explosion" at this point. All will likely be revealed soon.

No evidence that QZ8501 exploded before hitting water: Investigator - Channel NewsAsia (http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/conflicting-views-on/1585296.html)

training wheels

12th Jan 2015, 10:42

Capetonian

12th Jan 2015, 10:44

I've just listened on the radio to an 'expert' in HKG saying that the aircraft exploded because it was forced by the storm to climb to a height at which the stress of the pressurisation inside the hull caused it to 'burst like a balloon'.:ugh:

training wheels

12th Jan 2015, 11:07

This report in Bahasa says that Navy divers have seen the CVR but it's currently being pinned down by the wing and as a result, they haven't been able to retrieve it today. It's located not far from where they found the FDR, about 20 meters, but because the wing is heavy, they will have to use a "lifting bag" (balloon?) to raise the wing. Hopefully tomorrow it will be lifted (to the surface).

detikNews : Basarnas: CVR QZ-8501 Sudah Terlihat, Tertimpa Sayap Pesawat (http://news.detik.com/read/2015/01/12/184907/2801265/10/basarnas-cvr-qz-8501-sudah-terlihat-tertimpa-sayap-pesawat)

physicus

12th Jan 2015, 11:12

@bud leon
Nah mate, this recovery has been pretty abysmal thus far. Look at the photos of the tail section recovery. They won't know what scrape, scratch, break or tear resulted from the crash and which one from the recovery. No post mortems on the bodies recovered thus far... inexcusable. I don't care what religion or other make belief man in the sky you pray to, we (and you) need to know why this happened. Looking at your dead relatives body is what helps us do that. We'll only be a moment, thank you.

Then some rando indonesian investigator makes bizarre statements about exploding hulls, something which clearly they wouldn't have a clue about at this stage.

I can only hope that Airbus is taking the lead on reading out the recorders. And that someone leaks the information on them. Because by golly we'll never know what happened otherwise if Fernandes gets his financially linked buddies in government involved.

oldchina

12th Jan 2015, 11:20

Airbus will get a copy of the data pretty swiftly, as will other parties to the investigation. Unless the Indons are capable of creating a false version (I doubt it) the truth will out soon.

Genghis the Engineer

12th Jan 2015, 11:22

It's to minimise exposure to oxygen, which is the chemical agent of corrosion.

Although they should have moved it from the salt water it was inevitably found in, to fresh water - the salt doesn't help corrosion either.

training wheels

12th Jan 2015, 11:35

Airbus will get a copy of the data pretty swiftly, as will other parties to the investigation. Unless the Indons are capable of creating a false version (I doubt it) the truth will out soon.

Anyone remember MI 185 and how the NTSC and NTSB (on behalf of Boeing) came to different conclusions on that one?

LaissezPasser

12th Jan 2015, 13:09

I am fluent in Indonesian; I’ve seen and heard the original quote by the Barsanas chief.
Regrettably, there was no error in translation. He really is saying that, in his “analysis,” the plane “exploded” on impact with the water, and that the air pressure differential consequent to the impact caused the passengers’ bodies to be expelled from the plane.

Keep in mind that Soelistyo is not an accident investigator; he’s an ex-military general who now leads the mostly civilian search and rescue agency.
While Indonesia does have some good technical experts, Soelistyo is not one of them and there is unfortunately not a culture of message discipline here.
Expect more premature and cringe-worthy conclusions to be aired: The first was the meteorological agency; the second (and very much under-reported) was last Thursday’s announcement by Santoso Sayogo, the NTSC (Indonesia’s NTSB) lead investigator, that the ping locators will no longer needed, since the tail had been found — even though, at that point, no pings had been detected from the tail; and now Soelistyo’s gaffe.

The best reading of Soelistyo’s remarks is as a “just-so” story to explain the absence of victims’ bodies from the fuselage, which the Indonesian public widely expected to be still strapped into their seats. In remarks as recently as Sunday, Soelistyo repeatedly stressed that the recovery mission will prioritize recovery of victims’ bodies over that of the black boxes. Now he has to explain why the divers under his command surfaced with boxes and not bodies.

The NTSC’s Sayogo should be lauded for quickly rejecting Soelistyo’s speculation: “There is no data to support that kind of theory,” he said a few hours ago. You need some courage to do that to a general here — and one on whom your investigation depends for operational and logistical support.

LaissezPasser

12th Jan 2015, 13:25

Just a minor correction - autopsies have been performed on some of the bodies, but not all (or even most). I gather family opposition is the main reason.

Yep, they're doing autopsies on all the foreigners, on presumption of family permission. Autopsies on the Indonesians only if the family permit. There was a church group onboard, so the ME might get higher consent rates than with more Muslims on board.

peekay4

12th Jan 2015, 13:25

Nah mate, this recovery has been pretty abysmal thus far. Look at the photos of the tail section recovery. They won't know what scrape, scratch, break or tear resulted from the crash and which one from the recovery. No post mortems on the bodies recovered thus far...
No professional investigator or materials engineer would be confused by scrapes or scratches from the recovery effort.

And post-mortems are performed for each and every body recovered so far. This was already explained before (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/553569-air-asia-indonesia-lost-contact-surabaya-singapore-53.html#post8807462).

It's worth to re-quote bud leon:

"If you are just going to take barely-informed pot shots from the sidelines, it says more about you than it does about them."

A0283

12th Jan 2015, 13:44

3°37'20.7"S 109°42'43"E --------- acc.to A0283’s plot, new object, so probable CVR,
3°37'21.13"S 109°42'42.45"E -----acc.to A0283’s plot, coordinates published for FDR,

offical, previously stated FDR coordinates were:

3°37'21"S109°42'42"E

but they are 21.7 meters apart.

offical,previously stated distance estimate 20m,

A0283 addition - Taking mm43's 21.7 meters. And the offical statement that the
FDR was stuck under 'the' wing. CVR appears to be too. If we take a wingspan value
of 35.80 meters ... An 'intact' wing could easily cover both locations.

peekay4

12th Jan 2015, 13:44

Picture from Antara News (http://www.antaranews.com/berita/473636/panglima-tni-pencarian-belum-selesai):

http://img.antaranews.com/new/2015/01/ori/20150112antarafoto-penemuan-flight-data-recorder-120115-pras-2.jpg

This appears to be an L-3 Aviation FA2100 Solid-State FDR (http://www.l-3ar.com/products/cockpit_voice_recorders.htm).

training wheels

12th Jan 2015, 13:45

Stu/Blake if the seat was from the cockpit it may well be the engineer previously mentioned and manifested.

I believe the engineer's body has been recovered (based on the obituary postings on FB from those who knew him). And engineers who accompany flights which is common in Indonesia normally sit in the cabin (something to do with cockpit authority gradient) and usually at the back or emergency exit row if not taken by a passenger who has paid more for the extra legroom.

sAx_R54

12th Jan 2015, 13:54

@TWheels

..engineers...normally sit in the cabin (something to do with cockpit authority gradient)..

Your sure of this are you.....less to do with SOP??

Leightman 957

12th Jan 2015, 14:36

peekay: "No professional investigator or materials engineer would be confused by scrapes or scratches from the recovery effort."

I don't know if I would go that far, but the recovery crew needs to be cut some slack. My first reaction on the winch-aboard' was 'they're squashing it'. But the "tail" was more like a paper bag ripped open than an airplane, with one heavy, rigid piece (v stab) still attached. The 3D structural strength of the tail portion below water was insufficient out of water. The entire section would have required a redundant structure built around it to maintain the section's shape. The subsurface work would have to be performed over days with little visibility in what amounts to a cyclone of current flow. And there are more pieces waiting to be recovered.

News media so far is reinforcing the observation that there is nothing it can be told that it cannot screw up, misinterpret, take to the most illogical extreme, ignore language differences, fail to ask for clarification, or let die as inaccurate. We can be sure that every blind alley and patently false notion will be given equal, or sometimes even more earnest, concerned emphasis than clear statements of fact. We can further anticipate the errors, misinterpretations etc etc etc will be repeated and repeated and repeated by photogenic but otherwise clueless talking heads, referencing one another and welcoming false prophets and experts chosen for their dialectic positions until falsehoods approach the refined virtual news reality which is where news viewers are expected to function and like it. The statement of 'explosion by air pressure' is interesting, but has already been grabbed by media and morphed into Frankenstein. Pprune is a place supposedly sheltered from such media fallout but is not immune to it.

3km between FDR/CVR and tail section is a significant distance on smooth paving, and farther on water. We are lacking the early stages of a debris field map, overlays of current, and updates. Hopefully they will begin appearing.

Livesinafield

12th Jan 2015, 14:56

I think 3km is a lot I'm sure a 6kt current can't move 20kilos of metal that's sat in the sand

mcloaked

12th Jan 2015, 15:07

@Livesinafield: "I think 3km is a lot I'm sure a 6kt current can't move 20kilos of metal that's sat in the sand"

At 6kt that distance represents about 20 minutes - if one of two pieces sinks straight away after surface impact and disruption, and the other floats for 20 minutes before sinking carried by a current flowing at that speed, that does not seem particularly unrealistic?

island_airphoto

12th Jan 2015, 15:08

I would not bet on that. Diver and sailor here - the amount of force 6 knots of current exerts on a large and light metal object is immense.

Algol

12th Jan 2015, 15:30

Modern airborne radar is better than the "crap" we had 30 years ago? Surely you jest.

I could see the control tower on an airport from 5 miles out with the old radars, I could see individual airplanes parked on the ramp. I could see the weather clearly and make my own decisions as to the amount of water carried by parts of the cloud and thus make my own decision as to the parts to avoid. I flew years and years in the tropics and experienced hundreds of severe encounters at some of the worst levels (around 13,000 to 15,000 feet).

I give you the new radars are easy to use and they do the deciphering for you, but often they are wrong and always exaggerate. They are useless for fine work, cannot do even a small part of what was done by the older radars. They are cheaper to buy and to maintain, and are much lighter, so I see the reason for them, but don't kid yourself that they are better for the purpose they were built.

No Boofhead, I do not jest. They were crap.
I cut my ITCZ teeth on B732's in West Africa in the early 80's. My prevailing memory of those old radars was dodgy unreliable displays, lots of twiddly knobs to play with, and the definite impressioin that half the time they were serving you BS. Maybe because my crusty old Captains weren't 'adept' enough at twiddling the knobs. Or maybe because it was a black art that required a lot of concentration to work right - the kind of time you don't always have when racing around at 500mph in a storm filled sky.

Indeed a pair of my colleagues were almost killed by one of those cranky boxes. They made the mistake of interpreting a gap in the display as a hole. It was in fact a 'Super Cell', blanked out by radar attenuation. The aircraft was almost a write-off. The damage was impressive.

C Band Radar requires larger antennae, and other heavier equipment (so I'm told) so other solutions would be developed by necessity. The new radars do not require anything like the artistry of the old systems to give you useful info. When you say 'pilots don't know how to read/operate their radar' and instead recommend a return to those prehistoric glow tubes of old - you are being a bit of a luddite, nothing more. There is every likelihood such a system would create more problems than solutions. So I'll keep my modern, stabilised, bright, colour contoured, computer enhanced, map overlaid MODERN Wx radar thanks. If you want you can always switch off the automatics and play away to your hearts content with the raw data, ground clutter, noise, and all the other rubbish.

The bottom line is - the new stuff shows the weather very well in my experience. You use it to avoid - not penetrate CB's. Doing otherwise is the only possible explanation I can come up with for your love of those old boxes.
Good luck.

PersonFromPorlock

12th Jan 2015, 15:44

All or most of the pax will have died from the same cause, so a few autopsies should be enough.

island_airphoto

12th Jan 2015, 15:47

Are you sure the super-cell would not be black on a new radar too? Very early on with the monochrome digital radar we had back in the day, we learne the black blobs in the middle of the green returns were the worst areas to fly, not holes in the storms. The physics of extreme rain absorbing the radio waves has not changed.

despegue

12th Jan 2015, 16:00

island_airphoto

12th Jan 2015, 16:03

Large ships and some boats will fit S band radar that can burn through heavy rain, but the antennas would never fit anything but an AWACS airplane.

training wheels

12th Jan 2015, 16:03

@TWheels

Your sure of this are you.....less to do with SOP??

The airline I worked for in Indonesia welcome the engineer to sit in the jumpseat, but if they weren't required to be there to troubleshoot a problem, then they usually chose to sit in the cabin unless, of course, when we were full and they had no choice. On such occasions, I got the impression they felt uneasy being in the cockpit, which I suspect is due to the authority gradient.

Leightman 957

12th Jan 2015, 16:11

Tail section carried 3km is believable only if the tail was down current from the FDR. When we see current direction overlaid on a map of FDR and tail section locations it will be clear enough. Or more puzzling if the tail was cross stream or upstream.

I don't know anyone who does not with hindsight regret their choice of words from time to time, especially when in front of a crowd or on camera. I don't yet see anything contradictory in the 'explosive..air pressure' statement'. Sounds may be mis-interpreted, so must be considered separately. But a high volume, high velocity intrusion of seawater midpoint into a mostly horizontal fuselage could be expected to result in some cabin air overpressure. The paper bag analogy remains viable. Do recall also the fuselage frame pic of the skin neatly unzipped from the intact frame. The most likely cause of that is a sudden, very large, very uniform internal pressure. One must come up with an alternate cause for the unzipped skins to be able to disregard a fuselage overpressure. The video of the fuselage in situ which also shows virtually all cabin contents absent suggests a significant force having removed them.

Ian W

12th Jan 2015, 16:19

Correct.
Also with modern radar, any black area surrounded by Red is to be acoided at all times as this is probably an area where the data is invalid due to much precipitation...

On some models, this is supposed to be depected by magenta, not on the radars I operate though.

And remember that these radars regardless of their age are showing the rain which is mainly in the cold downdrafts. Warm updrafts will show a lot weaker on the radar but the turbulence will be as bad as the rainy downdraft and sudden changes in OAT can confuse the ADIRUs.

island_airphoto

12th Jan 2015, 16:27

billp

12th Jan 2015, 16:34

2rightsmake1wrong

12th Jan 2015, 16:46

No professional investigator or materials engineer would be confused by scrapes or scratches from the recovery effort.

As a professional aviation investigator and materials engineer I concur with peekay4's comment.

Moreover, I think it is important to not overplay the significance of the airframe impact damage. Think about what happens when an aircraft impacts land rather than water. Events X, Y and Z occur at altitude, leading to aircraft loss with ground impact. There will often be massive deformation, tearing and even burning of the airframe as a result of the ground impact. For the most part there is not a lot of significance that can be attributed to the somewhat random large-scale airframe damage caused by ground impact, other than determining things such as approximate speed, attitude and angle at impact (I'm in no way saying that impact damage and ground witness marks are unimportant, just that for the most part these are a consequence of a chain of preceding events that are often more significant to the investigation). Despite extensive ground impact damage, the evidence of what occurred is still there to be found, and far more often than not the factors leading up to the accident will be determined by the investigation team.

It is not easy hauling damaged airframes out of water without causing additional deformation and damage. My point is that some salvage-induced damage is not likely to be a big deal w.r.t. determining what happened with this flight.

Bergerie1

12th Jan 2015, 16:49

island airphoto,
I can remember being struck by lightning in a clear blue sky when flying out of Tel Aviv - no turbulence and not a cloud in the sky! Lightning in thunderstorm is not associated with turbulence in the same that way that water droplets are.

Algol

12th Jan 2015, 16:49

island_airphoto

Are you sure the super-cell would not be black on a new radar too? Very early on with the monochrome digital radar we had back in the day, we learne the black blobs in the middle of the green returns were the worst areas to fly, not holes in the storms. The physics of extreme rain absorbing the radio waves has not changed.

The old radars were monochrome. So how did you tell the difference between attenuation caused by a super cell and an actual gap? You couldn't. Well, maybe if you were highly skilled in the black arts you might be that kind of genius who just COULD tell the difference. Black holes didn't always appear neatly ensconced in the centre of green blobs. In the event I referred to the guys reported no green contour - just a nice clear (black) gap between the green blobs. A sucker hole.

With a modern contoured radar what would you expect to see in the same scenario?
A green contour, followed by a yellow contour, followed by a red contour, maybe some purple - then, what? A hole? Blackness?
Well it might depend on your radar set, but my suggestion is you don't go near RED or PURPLE, and try your best to avoid YELLOW and GREEN too.
That'll keep you safe.
No guesswork or black art required.

PS Radar attenuation is part and parcel of the system. If a sufficiently strong beam is emitted it could pass through all weather giving no returns. Not much good for WX spotting.
The signal needs to be of just the right strength to be partially reflected thus showing the WX. The snag is the weaker beam also suffers attenuation.

AstraMike

12th Jan 2015, 16:54

Island Airphoto:

Yes, I remember flying around with a Stormscope, they detect static electricity from moving air currents, not necessarily lightning, and so are pretty good at telling you where the rough air might be... especially at low level, but I would expect a Stormscope would be overworked in an area of multiple active CBs - just too many dots! They were mostly intended for light - non radar - aircraft. I never flew a heavy aircraft with one.

Lost in Saigon

12th Jan 2015, 16:59

island_airphoto

12th Jan 2015, 17:00

Algol - we used to try and get a ground return on the far side of the storm to see if it was a hole or heavy rain and then tilt up to get an idea how hight the tops were. It was far from foolproof with the small antennas on a piston twin, sometimes you just had to keep away from all of it or heavy rain where you were would blind you to what was coming. I suspect that is still true - heavy enough precip where you are right now won't let you see very well if even worse is in front of you.

Lost in Saigon

12th Jan 2015, 17:00

Has this been posted before? Video that shows a rear door on the tail: BBC News - Navy releases new underwater footage of AirAsia plane (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30758958)

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y17/msowsun/photo%20stuff/Photo15/BBC1.jpg~original

GarageYears

12th Jan 2015, 17:04

I don't yet see anything contradictory in the 'explosive..air pressure' statement'. Sounds may be mis-interpreted, so must be considered separately. But a high volume, high velocity intrusion of seawater midpoint into a mostly horizontal fuselage could be expected to result in some cabin air overpressure. The paper bag analogy remains viable. Do recall also the fuselage frame pic of the skin neatly unzipped from the intact frame. The most likely cause of that is a sudden, very large, very uniform internal pressure. One must come up with an alternate cause for the unzipped skins to be able to disregard a fuselage overpressure.

Surely the impact that occurred with AF447 would be a good model for an intact aircraft hitting the ocean at relative high vertical speed? I do not recall there being anything that might have been described as some kind of cabin over-pressure 'explosion' due to water ingress. It seems very unlikely that the aircraft would hit in a sufficiently flat attitude, that would avoid a structural break up at critical stress points - meaning there would be no intact pressure vessel to "over-pressure".

Leightman 957

12th Jan 2015, 17:38

Garage Years: Surely the impact that occurred with AF447 would be a good model for an intact aircraft hitting the ocean at relative high vertical speed?

The comparative issues of 8501 forward and vertical impact speeds are very much current conjecture. Despite the extreme depth of 447 wreckage, drift during descent still resulted in a debris field that was not gigantic. The degree of fragmentation of AF447 both by map and underwater photos compared to what little we know of 8501 debris at this early stage of recovery, and based on much conjecture, suggests relatively similar impacts might result in much different debris characteristics. The large area of 8501 tail section skin is about our only clue at present that suggests impact differences, but its large area is persuasive toward some causes.

AF447: Map of the debris field - Flight International (http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flight-international/2011/05/af447-map-of-the-debris-field/)

BG47

12th Jan 2015, 18:24

I am hoping that the black box manufacture and the Australian ATSB are helping the Indonesia Govt retrieve the data from the boxes & right now they are just behind the scene on the deck of the ship during the news photo ops.

Mr S...that’s what I am worried about too...Airbus will want to place the blame solely on the pilots and not on any potential recalls/redesign/liability claims/potential loss of orders.

Googled “australia ATSB Airasia 8501” and this came up:

"The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has agreed to an Indonesian request to provide a flight recorder specialist when needed."

MrSnuggles

12th Jan 2015, 18:39

BG47

Since it is Airbus, and in water, I am sure the French are there already.

formationdriver

12th Jan 2015, 18:53

boofhead

12th Jan 2015, 18:54

Algol: I did not ask for the return to the older radars, what would be the point? You demonstrate that modern pilots would not be able to use it anyway.

If I am coming up on a large area of activity and need to find the best way through (and I don't have the luxury of a super-airliner like you obviously fly so cannot go over it) I could, using the old equipment, find the route I wanted. Since you don't know what I am talking about there is no point my explaining it to you as to how to go about this, but believe me it was possible.

Modern radar makes all those decisions for me and for a modern pilot that is fine and dandy. Quite often though, the modern radar is wrong.

DrPhillipa

12th Jan 2015, 19:16

The french are there alright

I am sure that the Seattle branch of the agency have them permanently in their sights, so do not worry.

Peter H

12th Jan 2015, 19:17

PS Radar attenuation is part and parcel of the system. If a sufficiently strong beam is emitted it could pass through all weather giving no returns. Not much good for WX spotting.
The signal needs to be of just the right strength to be partially reflected thus showing the WX. The snag is the weaker beam also suffers attenuation.Can you amplify that remark, preferably with a technical reference? I find the physics, as worded, difficult to relate to.

Organfreak

12th Jan 2015, 19:31

Dr. Phillipa wrote:
I am sure that the Seattle branch of the agency have them permanently in their sights, so do not worry.

Would you care to spell that out in so many words, Dr.? :*

xcitation

12th Jan 2015, 19:39

McCloaked
@Livesinafield: "I think 3km is a lot I'm sure a 6kt current can't move 20kilos of metal that's sat in the sand"

At 6kt that distance represents about 20 minutes - if one of two pieces sinks straight away after surface impact and disruption, and the other floats for 20 minutes before sinking carried by a current flowing at that speed, that does not seem particularly unrealistic?

After it sinks the current will move the wreckage until it becomes anchored to the sea bed e.g. it skidded along the bottom until rotated so the VS lodged into the sea bed.

DCrefugee

12th Jan 2015, 20:04

Do any airliners fit stormscopes or equivalent technology? One of their selling points was that lightning was found in turbulent air, heavy rain or not. I liked the one I had way back when. Not as accurate as radar, but it worked.

I have one in a piston single, but it was next to useless *before* XM WX or ADS-B In's FIS-B. Now, I wouldn't pay to get it fixed or removed. Nothing replaces the Mk.1, Mod1 eyeball...

phil gollin

12th Jan 2015, 20:23

There seems to have quite some time taken to find the wreckage, have their been any statements on whether the sonar transponders worked properly, and if they do why the search was so long ?

PastTense

12th Jan 2015, 20:50

Several other explanations have already been offered:
1. It was not know where the airplane went down
2. The strong currents spread out the wreckage
3. Some of the wreckage was buried in silt
4. There is a lot of other junk on the sea floor, for example wreckage from the battle of the Java Sea in World War II and other wrecks happening on these heavily traveled sea lanes.

A0283

12th Jan 2015, 20:54

There seems to have quite some time taken to find the wreckage, have their been any statements on whether the sonar transponders worked properly, and if they do why the search was so long ?

According to my A0283 plot (sorry to label it like this, but I try to keep track of different plots and their updates including my own). On December 29th there was an official statement about searching/listening for pings around a specific coordinate and a 15 miles radius around it. If these were nautical miles then the FDR was a the edge of that radius or just outside. If they were statute miles then the recorders were outside that area.

If they were on the edge then you should have to know the effective range of the listening devices. Ranges mentioned during recent investigations are between 500-2000 meters.

During the MH370 search I read a comment which stated reduced effectiveness in shallow water. Next to the fact that in general in shallow areas there is more traffic and vessel noise. This is quite a busy area. It suprised me that only now they have closed a sector for traffic for better listening. A few days ago a big vessel was sailing right through the area (if you may believe that tracking site). So to better answer your question, we need someone who can say something about effective range in shallow water. The floor here was sand according to an official statement. Depth at the location was 30-32 meters.

nicolai

12th Jan 2015, 20:55

This BBC article on the black box recovery (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-30773782) contains a video segment in the middle showing the (presumably) AAIB CVR/FDR analysis room and a short interview with an accident investigator about recorder analysis.

broadreach

12th Jan 2015, 21:13

Regarding location of the data recorders, from all the conjecture that's gone before it seems entirely consistent that they would have been detatched on impact along with the apu and the bottom hull aft of the pressure bulkhead, sinking rapidly to the bottom while the relatively buoyant fin was carried downstream before sinking itself.

In all this, the real heroes are the divers. "Only 6 knot current".

MrSnuggles

12th Jan 2015, 21:59

Could someone please enlighten me as to why Boeing and NTSB are more trustworthy than Airbus and BEA?

I really don't get this whole A vs B thing some of you have got going. And why shouldn't BEA be trusted but ATSB should? I just don't get it. To me all planes are created equally beautiful but with different strengths to suit different persons and needs.

Also, some statement about autopsies and stuff.... of course there are going to be autopsies but you don't have to examine every single person in depth because some time cause of death is obvious to the naked eye and you can extrapolate from that.

DGM320

12th Jan 2015, 23:04

In all this, the real heroes are the divers. "Only 6 knot current".

:ok:
You can't swim against this. These divers are risking their lives with very narrow windows to do it in (when it calms down). I hope the media pressure doesn't make them do something stupid.

neila83

12th Jan 2015, 23:52

Mr snuggles you're so right and it's so tiresome, especially the irrationality displayed by a lot of pilots who otherwise like to boast of their superior reasoning. It only convinces me that maybe some of these guys weren't so superior as they think, if despite all statistics they genuinely think Airbuses are inherently dangerous.

Boeing are very involved in the search for MH370 and the investigation into Asiana 214, but no-one has ever suggested any conflict of interest there. It's just how it goes sadly. Ironic, given the number of pilots who pride themselves on their rationality and like to remind us how flying is the safest form of transport, but then are as irrational as the most feared flyer when they're comparing products....

I will keep flying Airbuses as they have exactly the same chance of crashing, but generally a more comfortable economy product.

(the good thing is any time someone tells me I shouldn't be nervous about flying in turbulence because it's irrational, I can just point to all the Boeing guys who appear to be terrified of flying on Airbus equipment and are doing their best to put anyone who listens off flying. Good job guys.)

Mesoman

12th Jan 2015, 23:53

Pearly White

13th Jan 2015, 00:05

Airbus to get ejectable black boxes... (http://www.skynews.com.au/business/tech/2015/01/13/airbus-to-get-ejectable-black-boxes.html#sthash.TGdlAVfJ)
Airbus planes will soon carry ejectable, floating black boxes to aid in their location.

training wheels

13th Jan 2015, 00:13

But wouldn't they also get carried away with the ocean currents if they floated?

Boomtown

13th Jan 2015, 00:16

Which floating black box will presumably be fitted with an ELT. Hooray !

Please note that the article says this will be a second black box copy of the version secured to the airframe.

scard08

13th Jan 2015, 00:19

Airbus planes will soon carry ejectable, floating black boxes to aid in their location.The article quotes an unnamed spokesman for the European Air Security Agency saying that "the change is generally quick".

I have to wonder if the spokesman understands the reality of rolling out such an option. I know the major manufacturers could design such a system (in a sense it is existing tech). Getting it approved would take a while, but getting every aircraft retrofitted would be a marathon. Such changes are not "generally quick".

Green Guard

13th Jan 2015, 00:21

But wouldn't they also get carried away with the ocean currents if they floated?

Of course they would. And what's the problem? None
First they are found, and even if thousand miles away, they contain all data, even the position of crash.

training wheels

13th Jan 2015, 00:33

The problem is when the ULBs do not transmit as was the case initially with these blackboxes. And the ULBs have a limited range?

A better option would be to transmit the FDR data using telemetry to a ground based station via satellite. Transmission could be triggered by a master caution going off by the aircraft's warning system.

Ian W

13th Jan 2015, 00:50

The industry will get the system that the sharp avionics salesman/salesmen get sold to the chairman of the board of the airline and its beancounters. In almost all cases this will be the wrong system for the job but the salesman will make a lot of commission.

Tas62

13th Jan 2015, 01:01

According to ABC TV news (Aus) 'Divers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder, Official.'

vapilot2004

13th Jan 2015, 01:01

Airbus and the BEA are both heavily represented. Photos of their people near the wreckage are evident in the press. Let's hope someone will be looking very closely over their shoulders to make sure the full and complete data from both from the FDR the CVR (when it is recovered) is made known and public. Whatever the data/conversations tell us about pitot tubes, FBW, direct vs alternate laws, crew training, P2F, decision making, cockpit resource management, etc, etc.

FD,Per ICAO Annex 13, the release of information is under the jurisdiction of the airline's country of registry in this case. Secondary parties involved in the confidential sharing of information include the country of incidence and manufacture of the aircraft. Final report data must be shared among operators of type, the manufacturer and participating ICAO governing entities, however public release of this information is primarily up to the state of registry's local laws and customs.

CVR transcripts fall under stricter guidelines due to privacy concerns - this information can be published if the investigating state's laws and customs permit it.

NSEU

13th Jan 2015, 01:06

Good luck getting the black boxes to float!

Armour plated for crash resistance, for their size, they would have to be the heaviest boxes on the aircraft. You'd have to find a crash resistant/fire proof floatation device of considerable size.

jolihokistix

13th Jan 2015, 01:10

According to the RT clip posted earlier, the rescue crew on the barge are all Russian.

chefrp

13th Jan 2015, 01:10

Budi Sampurna, a professor at the University of Indonesia and member of the forensic team responsible for identifying bodies from the crash, said one autopsy had already taken place, but he didn’t comment on the cause of death. He also didn’t say how many other autopsies were planned.

I posted this 3 January. So yes autopsies have been done. I just think they don't want to talk about it because of family sensitivities.

SAMPUBLIUS

13th Jan 2015, 01:13

By Nilufar Rizki

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Divers retrieved the cockpit voice recorder from the wreck of an AirAsia passenger jet on Tuesday, MetroTV said quoting a transport official, a key piece of evidence for investigators to determine the cause of the crash that killed 162 people.

The cockpit voice recorder, which records conversations between the pilots and with air traffic controllers, was found close to where the flight data recorder was recovered from the bottom of the Java Sea on Monday, the report said.

ana1936

13th Jan 2015, 01:18

AirAsia: Second black box retrieved – report

AirAsia: Second black box retrieved ? report | World | 3 News (http://www.3news.co.nz/world/airasia-second-black-box-retrieved--report-2015011314#axzz3OXjT0tyG)

training wheels

13th Jan 2015, 02:22

No doubt the Indonesian search and rescue organisation will parade it around for the cameras like they did for the FDR. :ok: They're loving the attention, but kudos to them and all involved in the SAR effort. They deserve all the accolades they get.

peekay4

13th Jan 2015, 02:37

Numerous news reports about the recovery of QZ8501's flight data recorder say it might take up to a month to read the data. Can anyone tell me if this is true and why it takes so long, especially if the FDR is intact, as this one seems to be?
If the FDR is in great condition then the data readout will be quick (hours or days).

Even so, after the data has been downloaded, all the information collected must then be validated / checked for quality. E.g., suppose we read out a series of sidestick movements -- how do we know that those were the actual movements of the sidestick, and not representing a sensor malfunction, or perhaps a recording error from the FDR itself?

There are hundreds of parameters which much be checked for correctness. Normally this quality check can be completed quickly as well, but in cases of discrepancy it can take many months to fully validate the data.

Various regulations stipulate that each FDR/CVR must be checked and analyzed for data quality (including a full-flight parameter readout) at least once every 12 months. Unfortunately there have been recorder errors undetected until after an accident, making retrieval & analysis a very long and tedious process.

training wheels

13th Jan 2015, 02:43

Numerous news reports about the recovery of QZ8501's flight data recorder say it might take up to a month to read the data. Can anyone tell me if this is true and why it takes so long, especially if the FDR is intact, as this one seems to be?

And how long will it be before the data gets leaked to social media? My guess is, give it a week and we'll be discussing about it here . :ooh:

peekay4

13th Jan 2015, 02:53

Of course they would. And what's the problem? None
First they are found, and even if thousand miles away, they contain all data, even the position of crash.
The problem is more along the lines of accidental ejection, especially if such an accidental ejection could itself cause safety issues (damage to the aircraft, etc.)

Airbus vs. Boeing have been debating this for months. From an NTSB meeting last year:

Boeing, Airbus at odds over black boxes that eject (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ac055bb6f7b949338c3f237139631326/boeing-airbus-odds-deployable-black-boxes)

Machinbird

13th Jan 2015, 02:56

And how long will it be before the data gets leaked to social media? My guess is, give it a week and we'll be discussing about it here . Give it 2 weeks to be safe.
You should probably see selected FDR data first. The voice will probably be held back while they discuss what is proper to release.

training wheels

13th Jan 2015, 02:57

Don't know whether this has been posted before, but it shows a detailed map of what's been found in this area.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7MoJSOCEAEKkNs.jpg

Object 18 could be the engine. Object 9 could be the fuselage. "Jenazah" is deceased (body).

Source: Twitter (https://twitter.com/JackBoard/status/554831332249858048/photo/1)

tdracer

13th Jan 2015, 03:43

Having looked at lots and lots of digital FDR data over the years (most for incidents, not accidents), it does take some time to make sense of the data. Data corruption is not uncommon, nor is valid but 'miscaled' data (e.g. off by a factor of 2 or 4, that sort of thing), and things like power transfers or momentary power interrupts can corrupt data for several seconds.

Actual CVR recordings are seldom (never?) released after a fatal accident - only a transcript will be released to the public, and that's not likely to be real soon. I listened to one CVR when I was actively involved in an investigation (there was a 'click' that they wanted my opinion of what the sound was). Let's just say that listening to doomed pilots last words is not pleasant.:(

There will undoubtedly be complaints that more information is not forthcoming over the next several weeks. That's by design - during an active investigation the participants are effectively under a gag order. Unauthorized release of information can be career limiting - all data release is to be from the investigating authority. Sure, there'll be some leaks, but much of it may well be wrong (or at least inaccurate), which is why all the information is supposed to be released through channels.

So cool it with all the conspiracy theories for a while. The information will be released in due time.

SAMPUBLIUS

13th Jan 2015, 04:19

So cool it with all the conspiracy theories for a while. The information will be released in due time

AMEN AMEN AMEN :ok:

JSmithDTV

13th Jan 2015, 04:31

@NSEU

Good luck getting the black boxes to float!

Armour plated for crash resistance, for their size, they would have to be the heaviest boxes on the aircraft. You'd have to find a crash resistant/fire proof floatation device of considerable size.

Indeed... not to mention this little comment right at the end of the article. :D

"It would also help to indicate the exact point of impact at the time of the crash and to find the wreckage."

Airbus to get ejectable black boxes (http://www.skynews.com.au/business/tech/2015/01/13/airbus-to-get-ejectable-black-boxes.html)

mm43

13th Jan 2015, 07:09

There have been many interjections in threads in this forum dedicated to the A v B aspects, along with those addressing the never-ending theories about a supposed recorder substitution. None have ever been proven with a degree of conviction that "sticks".

This particular thread is not about Airbus versus Boeing, its about a mishap to a flight that involved an A320 aircraft. A relationship between the events associated with the flight and all the junk that has been portrayed in the past is a tenuous call.

Let's just deal with the facts around this particular incident, and let the facts that emerge speak for themselves, and never forget that its people like you and me who are always potential witnesses and victims to things that go wrong in aviation.

HarryMann

13th Jan 2015, 07:58

Good luck getting the black boxes to float!*

Armour plated for crash resistance, for their size, they would have to be the heaviest boxes on the aircraft. You'd have to find a crash resistant/fire proof floatation device of considerable size.

Would the duplicates need to be 'duplicates' as such?

That is would they need to be fully armored (and so heavy) if they were
for ejecting over water surrounded by a floatation device... maybe a compromise
could be made... ?

Scuffers

13th Jan 2015, 08:24

you don't need much of a lift-bag to float a surprisingly heavy object.

you only have to displace the same weight of water, and at 1Kg's/Litre a 20l bag will 'lift' 20Kg's (think something the same volume as a jerry can)

Blake777

13th Jan 2015, 09:25

Barsarnas Chief has apparently clarified that they have found the wings and an engine, but not the main body of the wreckage. The number of "clarifications" gets quite confusing.

Sawbones62

13th Jan 2015, 09:27

The appropriate ejectable/floatable/ELT/CVR/FDR technology is over 50 years old and well known in the military airlift and offshore rotary-wing communities, just Google "Crash Position Indicator".

cwatters

13th Jan 2015, 10:03

@NSEU

Good luck getting the black boxes to float!

Armour plated for crash resistance, for their size, they would have to be the heaviest boxes on the aircraft. You'd have to find a crash resistant/fire proof floatation device of considerable size.

One type is made from fibreglass filled with foam...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj-aOVUQMEE

Lancelot de boyles

13th Jan 2015, 10:14

'The change is generally quick,' the spokesman added on Monday

I can't see how such a thing can be quick, unless it already exists, awaiting approval. I can only imagine that the 'change' in question is to the specification. The engineering/R&D folks have no doubt got a fair amount of the spec in mind, and that may be the basis for any change. However, if Airbus & Boeing have differing, but equally valid views on what it should be, then already you have a delay. Not so quick, then.
Implementing these ideas would be a whole new set of considerations for the product and design folks. Recorders as they stand now are due to a process of evolution, still ongoing, rather than just a simple 'lets do this'. As is their placement. Where will it be fitted? How will it be ejected? when would it be ejected? Being just some very simple questions

Would the duplicates need to be 'duplicates' as such?

That is would they need to be fully armored (and so heavy) if they were
for ejecting over water surrounded by a floatation device... maybe a compromise
could be made... ?

Duplicates? Not necessarily. The main considerations are survivability and recovery, surely. So, it needs to be quickly obvious that it has been detached from the aircraft, and start transmitting. There also would need to be a well established response in this event. Not hoping for the best, surprised by the worst, which has been alluded to in several comments both here and the MH370 discussions.
In the event that the aircraft ends up in the sea, then the capsule should float. But would the 'capsule' end up in the sea, too? Defining the incident as being only over sea, or only over land will surely ignore a vast amount of other scenarios, such as coastal areas. So, It would need to be as survivable as the main unit. If the ejectable capsule is unable to survive an unexpected impact with rocks for instance, then the whole exercise becomes futile.

Transmission of data then, becomes an option.
But do you need to transmit it all? Or just snap shots? Maybe just critical phases, such as take off and landing, passing transition alt/level, anytime RadAlt is triggered, anytime GPWS/TCAS are triggered being just a few events when it would be needed.

island_airphoto

13th Jan 2015, 10:25

Why do you all think the floating beacon/CVR/FDR would be a literal duplicate of the one currently in the airplane with a huge float tied to it :confused:
You need duplicate DATA, not a duplicate box. The memory to store a copy of the data would fit within the form factor of current production floating EPIRBS.

training wheels

13th Jan 2015, 10:27

This is apparently a photo of the CVR which has just been retrieved.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7OXuE0CcAA2WYC.jpg

Source: CNA (http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/live-blog-retrieving-the/1583898.html?cid=TWTCNA) (6.57 PM Singapore time)

TWT

13th Jan 2015, 10:29

Good on the Indonesians for finding the boxes.They have achieved success with a lot of hard work.

Ian W

13th Jan 2015, 11:12

The appropriate ejectable/floatable/ELT/CVR/FDR technology is over 50 years old and well known in the military airlift and offshore rotary-wing communities, just Google "Crash Position Indicator".

They have been around for years on C-5 and C-141. See http://c141heaven.info/dotcom/training_materials/section_6_20_elt.pdf just the look of the document will tell you how old it is :)

Momoe

13th Jan 2015, 11:48

It's clear that (at least within this forum) the consensus is that the way we handle aircraft flight data needs changing.

Ejectable data capsules are workable concept, Island_airphoto has a good point, you don't need to eject the the FDR/CVR, you need the data not the whole shooting match.
Solid state memory is fairly robust and light, ejectable data capsules could be modular so more than one could be carried for little gain in weight, heaviest component would be the battery for the location beacon.
Also rather than broadcasting till it dies, some sort of algorithm to broadcast high power for location purposes for 1 minute, then low power for a period, then shut down and repeat. This would extend battery life/reduce battery size required.

Multi-facted approach would be ideal, data streaming via satellite, squawk changing to either 7700 or a new code (7400?).

The trigger mechanism(s) and parameters need careful consideration, don't want it triggered unnecessarily but it could be staged, heavy turbulence could invoke data streaming, ROD over a prescribed limit below 15k (to allow for emergency descents due pressurisation issues), etc.

The Ancient Geek

13th Jan 2015, 12:05

Volume

13th Jan 2015, 12:40

All of this talk of tracking and ejectable recorders seems to me to be waste of time and money.
Failure to recover the recorders is extremely rare, MH370 is a one-off event.
Exactly. A better ELT however (intended to save survivors) would be much more important than a device which allows to publish the report a few days earlier. In which major large aircraft accident of the last 50 years has the ELT been of any help to the survivors?
If the ELT points you to the crash site, finding the recorders will typically be a piece of cake.

Ian W

13th Jan 2015, 13:04

All of this talk of tracking and ejectable recorders seems to me to be waste of time and money.
Failure to recover the recorders is extremely rare, MH370 is a one-off event.
Finding the recorders in a few days rather than a few weeks is not going to affect safety or save lives.
The probability of finding survivors following a crash at sea is very low and in such cases we would expect to find EPIRB transmisssions anyway so what exactly would be gained by such changes ?

I agree that failure to recover the recorders is rare, but difficulty finding them is common.
The cost of the search even the relatively short one with Air Asia is mindbendingly huge. Had the weather continued bad for another week, the ULBs would have died and increased the problems for the search.

So we have the typical case of its a rare event but when it happens it is extremely costly to the level of government spending limits costly in some cases. This cost eventually works its way through to the ticket price or taxes.

Against that we have the relatively cheap fixes for the problem which from an engineering viewpoint are trivial.

It is the classic beancounter bind. It costs their account money and yet the probability of something happening that provides ROI to _their account_ is very low. So they would be spending something to save someone else money. That won't fly with beancounters.

However, imagine if all the searches for black boxes - even the simple successful ones - had been just 2 days shorter. The savings to the aviation industry and governments running SAR OPS would be enormous. I think better design of crash and DFDR/CVR locator systems or different ways to recover the data will be an industry mandate possibly within 5 years.

Derfred

13th Jan 2015, 13:05

Capn Bloggs

13th Jan 2015, 13:12

It is the classic beancounter bind. It costs their account money and yet the probability of something happening that provides ROI to _their account_ is very low...

...will be an industry mandate possibly within 5 years.
Correct. Mandate it. Then there's no bickering amoungst the spreadsheeters. The days of people "doing the right thing" if it costs money are long gone. Regulation is the only way.

Nieuport28

13th Jan 2015, 13:20

Considering all the advances being made in Battery Technology. Has there been any discussions on using a battery that could go, say, 60-90 days?

Or do the most current CVR, and FDR's already utilize the most advanced type?

Ian W

13th Jan 2015, 13:47

I've followed this entire thread and there is one point that seems to have been missed about Inmarsat supposedly offering free tracking for airlines.

Narrow body aircraft such as the A320 and B737 do not have satellite coms as standard equipment. It is a customer option (read: expensive). Most airlines do not order it. Perhaps it is standard equipment on wide bodies but that would not have helped in this incident.

So to suggest that as a cheap option for narrow body airliners is ignoring a glaring fact.

But in this case the aircraft although over water was in good line-of-sight (LOS) of land with VHF and therefore VHF Data Link (VDL) . Most of ACARS is done over VDL whenever in LOS of ground stations. The tracking could be done on VDL.

Oceanic areas are starting to mandate FANS (ADS-C, CPDLC) via SATCOM I suspect that most oceanic areas will mandate FANS within a few years and that any aircraft flying out of LOS of land will be required to be fitted with FANS/SATCOM. There are a surprising number of single-aisle aircraft flying transatlantic.

LiveryMan

13th Jan 2015, 13:53

Am I the only one that is having issues imagining how you can make a detachable, floating recorder be:

A) Strong enough to survive the same impacts as the current design
B) Light enough to float without a huge amount of flotation aid
C) Installable in the aircraft without significant and expensive redesign and recertification.

Surely, to make it crash resistant, it needs to be made to the same standard as the current design. And that means heavy.
The heavier it is, the more aid it needs to float.
The more aid it needs to float, the bigger the overall package will be.
Assuming of of course the technology exists to make a material than can float, yet withstand significant impact forces and damage.

If it's just a small recorder in a fibreglass or carbon fibre shell filled with foam, it's just not going to survive and will ultimately be useless.

A0283

13th Jan 2015, 13:54

Ian W ...

Good point about the search costs! I am doing calculations in that field. Quite complex, because quite a few assets and resources have multiple uses and applications.

Against that we have the relatively cheap fixes for the problem which from an engineering viewpoint are trivial.

A prudent design approach for commercial aircraft, in my view ( based on my experience ), is to start with saying that "nothing in the design of commercial aircraft is trivial". Even very small and apparently insignificant changes can be very or even extremely costly. There are thousands of examples for that. You do not add anything until you can really make a case, and make that case to 'all specialist directions' and 'stakeholders'.

glendalegoon

13th Jan 2015, 14:00

Look. Both Recorders have been found

The plane itself would have to be found sooner or later for a couple of reasons, both for humanity and for investigation.

The only real super mystery , no black box, no plane situation is MH370 and we may find that in time.

AND EVERYONE WANTS TO CHANGE EVERYTHING> I think mainly because people can't watch TV news anymore.

I'd rather spend the money on overlapping doppler wx radar from the ground on ATC radar and sending ground wx radar to planes for pilot evaluation.

Livesinafield

13th Jan 2015, 14:31

I'd rather spend the money on overlapping doppler wx radar from the ground on ATC radar and sending ground wx radar to planes for pilot evaluation.

That's the best suggestion in 98 pages

mcloaked

13th Jan 2015, 14:32

@nieuport28 "Considering all the advances being made in Battery Technology. Has there been any discussions on using a battery that could go, say, 60-90 days?"

There already seems to be a reasonable level of adoption of 90 day batteries in ULBs - see:

RJE International - Aviation - Underwater Locator Beacons (http://www.rjeint.com/aviation-underwater-locator-beacons)

Also it seems that there are new regulations (tso-c121b and ED112A ULB) that seem to imply that 90 day battery life for ULBs will be the norm after March 2015 with older 30 day batteries going out of use after that date. I don't know if the rules will require all batteries to be replaced by 90 day ones or if only new installations will require them, but it does seem that the use of 30 day batteries will become a thing of the past.

There seems to be a long European regulatory amendment document at http://www.easa.europa.eu/system/files/dfu/rulemaking-docs-npa-2013-NPA-2013-26.pdf which seems to imply on page 10 that "Mandate that the ULDs of all crash-protected flight recorders have a transmission time of 90 days by 1 January 2020"

John in YVR

13th Jan 2015, 14:43

Good point about the search costs! I am doing calculations in that field. Quite complex, because quite a few assets and resources have multiple uses and applications.
AO283 a quick question:

How do you separate out the true costs for a search?

Take almost ANY crash as an example. The day before the crash all the men and women in the crash investigation were employed by their various countries and companies.

However on the day of the crash they are quickly seconded to a new job for a few days, weeks or months. But they are still getting paid, for the most part, by their countries and companies.

On a more narrow focus take, for an example, the guy sitting in the engine room of a Coast Guard ship. He gets paid the same if the ship in training or searching for sunken ferries or airplanes. Right? The only true costs of the engine room guy doing a search is if he has to work longer shifts and gets some overtime.

When media talks about the tremendous costs for searches I am hesitant to believe. Perhaps if they were to include ONLY the the cost of over-time or fuel for extra hours of operation then it would be more realistic.

Derfred

13th Jan 2015, 15:40

Do you mean that for example the tens of millions of dollars that the Australian Defence Force has spent looking for MH370 would have been spent otherwise and anyways in training rather than real world SAR?

WilyB

13th Jan 2015, 16:13

Would the duplicates need to be 'duplicates' as such?

That is would they need to be fully armored (and so heavy) if they were
for ejecting over water surrounded by a floatation device...

For some applications I use NIJ Class III armor (7.62 FMJ NATO) that floats (density <1).

BARKINGMAD

13th Jan 2015, 16:30

Once again, in response to a tragic hull loss with appalling loss of life, so-called "professional pilots" are proposing the industry spends vast amounts of money on more gadgets and widgets to ensure more rapid or guaranteed location and recovery of the DFDR and CVR.

As reluctant SLF and related to others, I would prefer the money to be spent on better training, so that me/my relatives/friends don't end up in the water in the first instance.

Anyone who has spent any time in aviation will realise the hardware option will take loadsa time and money before anything is agreed, designed, developed, flight tested, certified and finally installed in ALL 'frames.

If this accident turns out to be flight deck HF related, as per AF447, then I think that PREVENTION is better than WRECKAGE LOCATION.

If this 'bus has bunted over and dived for the earth as per the recent AD, with the possibly unaware pilot(s) applying full aft stick, then surely the solution lies elsewhere and not in the fitting of investigative aids? :ugh:

Algol

13th Jan 2015, 16:42

Algol: I did not ask for the return to the older radars, what would be the point? You demonstrate that modern pilots would not be able to use it anyway.

The older generation couldn't either mate, as was demonstrated time and again.

If I am coming up on a large area of activity and need to find the best way through (and I don't have the luxury of a super-airliner like you obviously fly so cannot go over it)

What are you flying? DC-3's?
The aircraft involved was an A320.

I could, using the old equipment, find the route I wanted. Since you don't know what I am talking about there is no point my explaining it to you as to how to go about this, but believe me it was possible..

I know very well what you are talking about. You are talking about outdated equipment and your skill in the black art of using it. Bully for you.

Modern radar makes all those decisions for me and for a modern pilot that is fine and dandy. Quite often though, the modern radar is wrong.

It's all wrong, if you use it wrongly. But the modern gear is easier to use. So less often dangerously wrong.

I'll lay a penny to a pound that (if this was indeed a cb encounter) it came down to pilot decision making, not equipment shortcomings. And by the way - by pilot decision making I refer to the kind of hard choices forced on pilots every day, when ATC refuse course deviations.

IcePack

13th Jan 2015, 16:53

ATC refuse deviations que! ATC or CB ? Mayday I'm deviating. Having said that I have never been refused point blank.

DrPhillipa

13th Jan 2015, 17:02

Shock and fire resistance no longer mean heavy since the advent of Kevlar, Carbon, honeycombes and foams. Current commercial combined recorders are only a couple of Kg.

Deployable Combined Data Recorders have been used successfully and usefully by the US Navy since 1993.

The NTSB(US) recommended in 1999 that two Combined data Recorders should be used, on separate power grids, both with RIPS. One should be deployable, both should be spatially separated (eg tail and nose). The FAA(US) is still thinking about it having been given 3.5 million to do so.

The SAFE act mandating the NTSB proposal has been introduced 4 times to Congress, most recently in March 2014.

Basically Airbus has said it will implement this proposal on their wet long range new builds A350 and A380. The proposed recorder performance massively exceeds current legal requirements, I do not see a big problem with certification and if Airbus did they would probably not have released the info. If EASA green lights it, I do not see how the FAA can object especially as they have a 15 year old NTSB recommendation for it.

As to uploaded ground based weather radar data, this is as I understand it already available using ADS-B. NextGen and Single European Sky would probably mandate it.

BUT! a lot of this applies to North America/Europe. Other airspaces may have to comply in order to fly to and over the US/Europe but for example in the case of MH370, just because they physically can do ACARS over satellite, does not mean they feel like paying to do so. Even the Marshall Islands have their own, technically independent, CAA.

Algol

13th Jan 2015, 17:04

"The signal needs to be of just the right strength to be partially reflected thus showing the WX. The snag is the weaker beam also suffers attenuation."

This is not true. All radar beams suffer attenuation. A stronger beam can make it through the precip when weaker beams may not. The radar processes the echo after the beam has been transmitted, so a stronger beam will always produce a stronger echo.

I said exactly the same, right up to that highlighted line. I can't agree with that.
Maybe this is a misunderstanding. What do you mean by 'stronger'? More amplitude?
What is being debated is frequency band. That's where the systems have changed notably.
If you have a land or ship borne system you may be able to produce enormous beam amplitude, but on an aircraft you don't have that luxury. Varying the frequency band varies beam penetration for a given power output/amplitude.

Radars also attempt to compensate for the attenuation (your mileage may vary).

but this is what boofhead detests. Raw data is best! For him.....

A mention has been made here of radar and super-cells. Super-cells are rotating thunderstorms that are unlikely at ITCZ latitudes - they are what produce most tornadoes, especially in the US midwest. Super-cells may have a bounded weak echo region (a rapid updraft with a weak radar echo). I don't think that's what's going on here.

I mentioned the ITCZ in West Africa. In relation to a severe incident/near accident caused by ancient WX radar. It was NASA who charecterised the CB as a super-cell in the incident report (based on WX sat data).
Having seen the aircraft after the event, and spoken with my colleagues, it was no ordinary CB. NASA commented that the flight probably only penetrated the outer edges before they turned/got spat out. They also speculated that further penetration would almost certainly have resulted in a breakup.

I have no opinion on the severity of the storm involved in the AK crash. We don't know.

Algol

13th Jan 2015, 17:07

IcePack ATC refuse deviations que! ATC or CB ? Mayday I'm deviating. Having said that I have never been refused point blank.

Then I assume you never fly in China airspace.

In extremis, yes of course, a PAN or even MAYDAY may be your last resort. But most pilots are reluctant to do that, rather than attempt to negotiate a compromise with ATC.
Because 'going nuclear' might cost you your job and/or your freedom in some parts of the world. Hard choices for sure. That's why we get paid such BIG BUCKS. :rolleyes:

Organfreak

13th Jan 2015, 17:33

As reluctant SLF and related to others, I would prefer the money to be spent on better training, so that me/my relatives/friends don't end up in the water in the first instance.
and......
If this accident turns out to be flight deck HF related, as per AF447, then I think that PREVENTION is better than WRECKAGE LOCATION.

Even though this guy is clearly BARKING MAD, I completely agree with him!

:p

Lonewolf_50

13th Jan 2015, 17:41

As to MH370 - I'm starting to feel they've given up on it and we'll never find out the truth. Heck, they found AF 447 and there is some question about the entire "truth" of that event due to only parts of the CVR being released (per standard practices).

@ glendalegoon: Amen Deacon! (in re wx radar information flow)

BARKINGMAD: If this accident turns out to be flight deck HF related, as per AF447, then I think that PREVENTION is better than WRECKAGE LOCATION.Likewise inclined. Suggest training and cockpit culture is the area most helpful in such prevention efforts.

DrPhillipa

13th Jan 2015, 18:13

Likewise inclined. Suggest training and cockpit culture is the area most helpful in such prevention efforts.

In order to help find out that where the problem was, and propose solutions, and possibly adopt them (if not too expensive), and suggest that non EU/US CAAs adopt them too ... and prevent the problem ...

you need to find the wreckage and the data recorders.

Which is why the NTSB recommended deployable data recorders in 1999!

squeaker

13th Jan 2015, 18:36

Barkingmad:
If it helps to reassure a bit, the airline I work for has been focused on stall recognition/recovery for the last six months of recurrent training/checking in the simulator. All our pilots have now been exposed to this and we are acutely aware of the problems that AF447 encountered. I'm sure my Company is not alone in this, I'm sure many others will have taken the same approach, even before this accident (if stalling/unreliable airspeed is involved, of course). The industry is generally good at learning from incidents/accidents.

IcePack

13th Jan 2015, 18:52

Algol, Yep still wouldn't fly through a T/S. & have had no problems (deviating) on the odd occasion (very Few) that I have been in Chinese airspace.
It is worrying then that ATC are now putting aircraft at risk. I wonder if this fact will be a factor in this instance. If only the SLF realised what aviation has come too.:hmm:

fireflybob

13th Jan 2015, 19:08

Until we get the data we do not know the chain of events which led up to this accident.

It's possible this accident may not be weather related or weather may be a small factor along with other factors which currently we are not aware of.

island_airphoto

13th Jan 2015, 19:09

Anyone who wants to see radar freq. vs. rain can take a look here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvTkVj5-uv0
This isn't POWER, it is FREQUENCY.

ATC Watcher

13th Jan 2015, 19:51

Ice pack : It is worrying then that ATC are now putting aircraft at risk. I wonder if this fact will be a factor in this instance.

Again , you do not seem to understand that ATC is not there to put aircraft at risk regarding weather. ATC has another function , proactive weather avoidance is not their task. Also you have to realise that most ATC centres do not have weather radars superimposed on their radar displays.

In this case, ATC allowed the crew to deviate horizontally, as requested. The climb was delayed , but for the correct reasons. If the crew percieved a risk, they could easily have overuled ATC and climb, (and maybe they did) .

From what I have heard so far, I am not sure weather alone is the reason of this crash . But a bit of patience, with both recorders recovered now we probably will know soon enough .

ACLS65

13th Jan 2015, 19:51

RifRaf3

13th Jan 2015, 20:27

The military currently have developed an integrated battlefield radar picture that takes all radar sources painting any target and integrates them into a composite 'objective' picture. Any fighter can then switch their radar off if necessary for stealth purposes and still get an accurate presentation via data link of the targets computed 'as if' from their individual perspective.

Similarly with TCAS we share our info on relative positions.

The recent extreme storms in Brisbane Australia demonstrated that extreme cell pictures vary, dependent on the relative direction of the radars. The weather radar North of BNE showed a quite different picture to the one South of BNE especially regarding the all important gaps between major cells.

It would seem not to difficult to integrate ground and air weather radars into a composite picture, particularity relating to dangerous cells. This is even simpler than the battlefield situation because we fly on narrow air routes in ideal, reciprocal directions.

SeenItAll

13th Jan 2015, 21:02

Just a thought about the ejectable CVR/FDR issue. How about having a duplicate copy of the memory modules stuck into the vertical stabilizer. It seems that this is the first thing to be shed from the plane, and also seems to float -- not to mention that it is big enough to identify in a search.

Think of the AA A300 crash out of JFK, the AF 447 crash in the Atlantic, and now this Air Asia crash. The first thing found was the floating VS section.

A0283

13th Jan 2015, 21:04

John, all the points that you mention are valid. They show part of why it is complex.

In my view there is no such thing as 'true' costs. In all cost calculation (and its foundation on costs collection and allocation) there is a lot of subjectivity.

Subjectivity returns at the beginning of the 'top' search costs calculation. P.M. Tony Abbott used a 'common' (common in both government and industry) statement early on in MH 370 when he said something like "we have these (navy) ships anyway, so there is no (extra) cost". That is a different viewpoint from what I would take, that is starting with the statement that all activities and all asset uses carry costs.

When the search took longer, the costs came 'out in the open', because part of the search was outsourced (costs published). And part of the naval assets had to return to the missions/activities they were on when it all started. If not, then they would have to add a line item in the navy budget for new assets and for certain deepwater search systems.

One of the easy parts of this is, that many or most of the costs are known or familiar. In aerospace design that can be different, there you sometimes have to calculate with 'technical costs' because the systems or components have never been manufactured before.

HarryMann

13th Jan 2015, 21:47

... this idea that every single step anyone takes or nut & bolt wasting away in a store always needs costing and charging (to someone or some budget or other) irks me..

really, not exactly proactive forward thinkkng govt. And what better exercises
and real life experience & training is there than being out there and doing stuff..
rather than twiddling fingers in offices, docks barracks.

if Tony Abbott is happy then let them get on with it... if the British Govt.
hadn't sanctioned the (novel) recovery of the Comet Papa India and
given Sir Arnold Hall & Farnborough a blank cheque in the early fifties and then
paid for a fully Public Enquiry... it could have been many years for
the full facts of metal fatigue's random scatter to be fully accounted for
in design. Plus all the other spinoffs... tank testing etc.
Doubt anyone was wasting time cost counting back then when all those facilities
and staff existed
bean counters eh? How much do they cost to house & feed :)

IcePack

13th Jan 2015, 22:19

ATC watcher
I was replying to Algol.
What part of :
Quote:
In extremis, yes of course, a PAN or even MAYDAY may be your last resort. But most pilots are reluctant to do that, rather than attempt to negotiate a compromise with ATC.
Because 'going nuclear' might cost you your job and/or your freedom in some parts of the world. Hard choices for sure. That's why we get paid such BIG BUCKS.
Un Quote
Didn't I understand.

RifRaf3

13th Jan 2015, 23:08

Furthermore, major Cb cells containing lightning are easily tracked from above by satellites and could be fed into an integrated dangerous weather picture.

(Another major advantage in the military use of data integration is that strike aircraft can track multiple targets behind them and release multiple missiles that quickly loop overhead after release to take care of following bogies. The aircraft in front have a missile range advantage then because their missiles are travelling with the relative 'wind' giving a missile major drag advantage.)

For a long time we have relied on doppler radar to sort static rocks from moving clouds on descent into terminal areas. The airfield radar has an advantage in that it's looking up away from the terrain. Even this level of integration in the terminal areas would be a great help, especially in low wind velocity conditions.

woora to ypph

13th Jan 2015, 23:31

Can anyone explain the (what looks like) scorching marks on the separation line just aft of the door ?

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03163/airasia-wreckage_3163123b.jpg

oblivia

13th Jan 2015, 23:45

Ian W

14th Jan 2015, 00:03

It is also things like FTC and STC to reduce clutter and I am sure lots of digital processing now.

"Sensitivity Time Control (STC). This feature reduces the impact of returns from sea state. It reduces the minimum SNR of the receiver for a short duration immediately after each pulse is transmitted. The effect of adjusting the STC is to reduce the clutter on the display in the region directly around the transmitter. The greater the value of STC, the greater the range from the transmitter in which clutter will be removed. However, an excessive STC will blank out potential returns close to the transmitter.

Fast Time Constant (FTC). This feature is designed to reduce the effect of long duration returns that come from rain. This processing requires that strength of the return signal must change quickly over it duration. Since rain occurs over and extended area, it will produce a long, steady return. The FTC processing will
filter these returns out of the display. Only pulses that rise and fall quickly will be displayed. In technical terms, FTC is a differentiator, meaning it determines the rate of change in the signal, which it then uses to discriminate pulses which are not changing rapidly."

Radar Systems (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/navy/docs/es310/radarsys/radarsys.htm)

island_airphoto
Anyone who wants to see radar freq. vs. rain can take a look here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvTkVj5-uv0
This isn't POWER, it is FREQUENCY.

These approaches will reduce the clutter in the returned signal but they do not change the attenuation of the radar outbound or reflected signal as it passes through rain. If the rain is heavy enough the radar signal will literally not get through. There are things that can be played with like changing the polarization of the radar signal but they don't solve the attenuation problem. An analogy is dense fog - To radar rain is like dense fog you can play with yellow headlights or blue headlights but if the fog is dense enough you will not be able to increase the visibility by a lot.

The approaches suggested in research are variants of multisensor tracking where a complete 4D picture is built up using ground radars. See NSSL Projects: Multi-Radar/Multi-Sensor System (MRMS) (http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/projects/mrms/). These pictures may then be sent to the flight deck through Aircraft Access to SWIM (System Wide Information Management). This is in the Continental United States. It may be that other areas could do the same but it is expensive.
Other approaches have looked at taking all the aircraft radars and mosaicing them into a 4D picture. But again someone has to do it and then find someone willing to pay for it. Guess what the beancounters won't hear of it.

Ian W

14th Jan 2015, 00:19

The constant reference to "beancounters" as a threat to airline safety is a bit fanciful. It's not the accountants' fault if safety standards are insufficient.

If there are failings (the evidence isn't convincing) then the problem is regulation and enforcement. From food to finance, we have seen constant pressure on funding to regulators during the past few decades (not to mention the busting of unions). It wasn't beancounters who did this — it was right-wing ideologues.

The major problem in aviation is that often the people paying are not the ones that benefit. So if the AT Service provider upgrades its equipment at a cost, the airlines benefit not the ATSP. If the airlines equip with ADS then the ATSP need not maintain heavy primary radar, the aircraft see little benefit unless the airspace concepts of operations are changed.

In consequence, the accountants do not see any ROI for their area in what is being suggested and advise strongly against the proposals. As someone said upthread - in reality money always comes before safety its pointless spending so much money that the airline fails. The result is that the use of ROI for some aviation aspects has to be trumped by mandate from the authorities. The accountants (aka beancounters) will then look around for savings and an easy area is training. This is why highly automated aircraft were sold based on the reduction in training. It is why there is pressure for unmanned or single manned aircraft.

ACLS65

14th Jan 2015, 01:22

Iain_W
These approaches will reduce the clutter in the returned signal but they do not change the attenuation of the radar outbound or reflected signal as it passes through rain. If the rain is heavy enough the radar signal will literally not get through. There are things that can be played with like changing the polarization of the radar signal but they don't solve the attenuation problem. An analogy is dense fog - To radar rain is like dense fog you can play with yellow headlights or blue headlights but if the fog is dense enough you will not be able to increase the visibility by a lot.

The approaches suggested in research are variants of multisensor tracking where a complete 4D picture is built up using ground radars. See NSSL Projects: Multi-Radar/Multi-Sensor System (MRMS). These pictures may then be sent to the flight deck through Aircraft Access to SWIM (System Wide Information Management). This is in the Continental United States. It may be that other areas could do the same but it is expensive.
Other approaches have looked at taking all the aircraft radars and mosaicing them into a 4D picture. But again someone has to do it and then find someone willing to pay for it. Guess what the beancounters won't hear of it.

Earned a bookmark for the next time we get weather here. Another promising option would be space based RADAR eliminating the need for additional RADAR equipment on the planes.

http://cup.aos.wisc.edu/will/im_and_durden2005.pdf

Every new technology faces the cost vs benefit decision, but if accidents prove to have been avoidable the cost has a way of becoming affordable.

onetrack

14th Jan 2015, 02:10

let's keep something in perspective, if a pilot does not know you push the stick forward to get out of a stall, he shouldn't be flying a plane.That's an excessively simplistic and inaccurate explanation of what has happened in many recent aircraft crashes. Yes, there have been some glaring piloting skill deficiencies exposed, but to reduce them to your description is not correct.
There have been failures in instrumentation, quite often information processing overload, and turbulent weather initiation of disastrous events. All of this usually happening in IMC with no references.
There appears to be a need to improve pilot training as regards loss of important instrumentation, and for them to be able to handle degradation of automation. However, to place blame simplistically as in your description, is unreasonable and misleading.
The training areas obviously needing upgrading, is to try and remove any confusion over what the aircraft is actually doing, when the pilots have little reference in severe turbulence, plus a loss of important instrumentation.
I'll wager Captain and FO confusion will be found to be important factors in the crash of QZ8501.

A0283

14th Jan 2015, 02:17

this idea that every single step anyone takes or nut & bolt wasting away in astore always needs costing and charging (to someone or some budget or other) irks me.
During the design process you also have budgets of weight. You start with cutting kilo's and end with trying to cut grams. Just another type of beans :-). Designers have to irk quite a lot before they get it right :-).

really, not exactly proactive forward thinking govt.
You can operate pro-actively and count beans at the same time. To survive in business you need to do both. Reminds me of Sir John Harvey-Jones... he would have loved talking to you.

And what better exercises and real life experience & training is there than being out there and doing stuff.. rather than twiddling fingers in offices ...
It is hard to design and manufacture aircraft out in the open :-). Engineers can be quite jealous of pilots :-). That's why quite a few fly outside office hours.

... it could have been many years for the full facts of metal fatigue's random scatter to be fully accounted for in design.
There was quite a lot of knowledge on metal fatique already. Alas, in ship design. You can take a look at Liberty ship hatch design and compare that to Comet window design. Interesting parallels, and of course also a number of differences (thin vs fat plate, riveting vs welding(funny the Liberties were an early change from riveting into welding)).

peekay4

14th Jan 2015, 03:17

AirAsia SAR Operations to End

After 17-days, news today that the principal Search and Rescue operation will be terminated soon (http://regional.kompas.com/read/2015/01/13/21172131/Operasi.Pokok.Pencarian.Korban.AirAsia.Akan.Dihentikan). Gen. Bambang Soelistyo, head of the National SAR agency (BASARNAS), declined to answer when exactly SAR operations will wind down, but it is expected to be in the next 3 or 4 days.

National SAR may continue more limited "day to day" operations out of respect and consideration for the victims' families.

Once the SAR phase ends, any further searches will focus solely on recovery. It is unclear whether the Indonesian Army (TNI) will take over the search effort from BASARNAS, or if it will be conducted under the jurisdiction of Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee.

Until now, the joint SAR team has located only 48 remains (out of the 162 souls on board). Of those, 36 remains have been identified and released to the families. Meanwhile, 12 other remains are still awaiting the identification process.

WSSS

14th Jan 2015, 04:02

We all know how easy it is to recover from a stall. All pilots learn that before they are released for their first solo. You learn stall recovery in the first 10 hours of your PPL flight training.

What pilots are now experiencing with complex aircraft is a new situation where, due to the complex design nature of their aircraft, they instantly don't know what the aircraft itself is doing. So in an abnormal situation, as in the one which lead to AF447, we have the situation where 3 qualified pilots were baffled with what was happening to the aircraft. You have about 3 to 4 minutes to work out what's going on, and then to deal with it, or else it's game over.

Would I be right in saying, AF447 was the first instance, of a deep stall ever experienced by a FBW Airbus aircraft? No-one has ever been in a similar position before? If the aircraft had been a non FBW A300 or A310, would the outcome have been different?

glendalegoon

14th Jan 2015, 04:43

WSSS

I really think the captain on AF447 DID KNOW what was going on, he just wasn't in one of the chairs .

I would not call AF447 a deep stall. Deep Stall has been sort of reserved for T tail planes...though some may have other thoughts.

ekw

14th Jan 2015, 05:11

WSSS

My understanding of a deep stall is to describe a state where the elevators become inoperable due to insufficient airflow and the aircraft cannot pitch out of the stall. This happens more in T tails because the disturbed air from the wings catches the tail at a certain angle, but I suppose if any heavy aircraft is below a certain speed then elevator deflection may not be sufficient to move the AOA - you need to roll as well.

oblivia

14th Jan 2015, 05:13

@Ian W

The accountants (aka beancounters) will then look around for savings and an easy area is training.

Regulators create the standards (including for training). If pilots or airlines fail to meet those standards and don't face sanctions for such breaches, well... I blame the regulators (and, ultimately, the political climate that equates free markets with unregulated markets).

Gretchenfrage

14th Jan 2015, 05:21

Unstalling a wing is very simple, decrease the AOA to less than the stall AOA.

How right you are! But .......

1. Too late
You need enough aerodynamics on your elevator. You might not have it when in a deep stall, or when you are way too slow already.

2. Too little
You need the authority by the FBW. Its action computers might not have enough travel to cope.

3. Too 'magentised'
You need the authority of the protections. They might be fooled by sensors and not allow unloading, and/or they might be too complicated to override ......

4. Too inexperienced
You need the guy at the stick realise that he's in a stall! Even with 20k hours he might have been told this can't happen, or he might have never experienced such a situation, just read in the OM what to do in case the thing happens that can't happen per superior design ......

Pick your numbers, they pretty much apply for many of the latest accidents.

Capn Bloggs

14th Jan 2015, 05:27

if any heavy aircraft is below a certain speed then elevator deflection may not be sufficient to move the AOA - you need to roll as well.
elevator deflection with full nose up on the stab may not be sufficient to move the AOA, you mean... :cool:

bloom

14th Jan 2015, 05:30

WSSS: I truly doubt that FBW had anything to do with this incident.

"We all know how easy it is to recover from a stall. All pilots learn that before they are released for their first solo. You learn stall recovery in the first 10 hours of your PPL flight training."

Many argue that "true flying skills" are no longer present in today's younger pilots due to FBW and the video game mindset.

I believe that the problem is more the fact that since the days of the 727, the concept of the "coffin corner" is no longer taught. You can't just climb as aggressively in the thin air as you can at a lower altitude without stalling.

A stall in PPL training with a fat wing, in fat air is an easy fix. Max power, lower the nose some. And you are never trained in full stalls again.

I was trained in the jet only the "approach to stall recovery",

It wasn't till several of our company aircraft entered moderate stalls at high altitude that that they trained us in the proper recovery.

I was shocked at the altitude loss and pitch attitude required for recovery.

And still, few airlines teach this in the sim.

Blake777

14th Jan 2015, 05:45

Cabin positions of victims recovered thus far:

https://mobile.twitter.com/TheNewOcean/status/555198231596904448/photo/1

DrPhillipa

14th Jan 2015, 06:00

It wasn't till several of our company aircraft entered moderate stalls at high altitude that that they trained us in the proper recovery.I was shocked at the altitude loss and pitch attitude required for recovery.
And still, few airlines teach this in the sim.

So you were trained for stall recovery in the sim? Who put your aircraft into the stalls required, and recovered from them, to provide the data for the sim?

Is this not the basis for Airbus reluctance to do sims on real stalls, that they do not have the data required to make the training meaningful/realistic and that they prefer to train to avoid the stalls in the first place.

Did the pilot-engineered stall on AF447 provide any useful data for an Airbus sim? The problem possibly being that there was no recovery and that at some stage a "recovery" might have "torn the wings off" anyway?

AmuDarya

14th Jan 2015, 06:05

Crash position indicators a the result of research into ejectable radio beacons that would deploy in a crash. The problem was solved 60 years ago and implemented first in military aircraft five decades ago. I'm not sure what this forum's policy is on Wikipedia, but this is worth a look.

Crash position indicator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_position_indicator)

Volume

14th Jan 2015, 06:53

If not push, just release the backpressure

I truly doubt that FBW had anything to do with this incidentAs most modern FBW aircraft do also have some sort of auto trim logic in their control system, there is no more backpressure. You really have to push to tell the computers that you want to go back to the condition you were in before you pulled. You can release the backpressure and your control system still remembers your pull command and delivers what you asked for.
Because of this, FBW has quite a lot to do with any incident/accident involving the flight controls, as it is always more than just replacing control cables with electric wires. It is a different control system requiring different flying technique. Quite similar to the difference between powered flight controls and pure mechanic ones. Backpressure on a DC-3 is quite different from backpressure on a 747...

And still, few airlines teach this in the sim. I would not trust the sim in those situations anyway, it is far outside the range it has been developed for. For most aircraft the numbers in the sim computers will simply be extrapolated, and not resulting from flight test data.
they prefer to train to avoid the stalls in the first place.
It does however not do any harm to also train how to recover from it. First priority should of course always be avoidance. Just like CBs, terrain, traffic...
We should also remember that the regulation is not asking for spin recovery of multi engine aircraft or stall recovery of large transport aircraft. All that is required is recovery from the situation when the warning is triggered. It is not required to fly full stalls in flight testing. And matter of fact, several prototypes were lost during stall testing in the past, so it is probably wiser to avoid it altogether.

NigelOnDraft

14th Jan 2015, 08:52

To say "Pilots were trained" for Stall Recoveries in their PPL phase, and expect that to have any relevance years later, when both time has passed, and flying very different aircraft, is not valid IMHO

In my RAF days, exercises such as stall recoveries were required to be practiced, IIRC, every 28 days. Along with UP recoveries etc.

From my experience, the 3 yearly "training cycle" of such items in typical airline Sims, and also the "canned" / tame nature of the exercises, renders them nigh on useless :ooh: I reckon the "benefits" of being refreshed last for maybe 2-3 months, then I think I am back where I was prior the sim.

There is little point in practicing "stall recoveries" unless and until we are proficient in recovering at the approach to the stall. And of course if we are proficient at the recovery at the warning stage, there is less merit in practicing the full stall & recovery.

Does anyone seriously believe the AF447 pilots had any chance of recovering once they got to <60KIAS / 40 AoA? Yes - the aircraft was theoretically recoverable, but given how they got to that point, I think the chance was almost nil. They had so seriously lost SA that the very bold control inputs and attitudes required I do not see happening?

The solution, if we wish to reduce LoC accidents (which are very rare), is to ensure pilots are genuinely competent in attitude flying, stalls even spins, UP recoveries - and keep current 2-3 times a year minimum. That is an awful lot of aerobatic aircraft hire, and will kill a lot of pilots in accidents. It won't happen, and I suspect we will just continue to see a small number of LoC accidents...

ManaAdaSystem

14th Jan 2015, 08:56

Deep stalls are not reserved for T tails only. I have trained deep stall in the 737 sim several times, both before and after AF 447. Deep stalls are way different than regular stall, and can take thousands of feet to recover from.

Dopsonj

14th Jan 2015, 09:03

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7TVMfLCUAApZHL.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7TU-uGCIAA0EMq.jpg:large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7TT7dBCcAAjVIz.jpg:large

According to Twitter: Singapore vessel MV Swift Rescue locates fuselage

Blake777

14th Jan 2015, 09:03

Singapore vessel MV Swift is saying it has located the fuselage of QZ 8501. An ROV has been sent down to photograph fuselage plus wings. (Jackson Board for Channel News Asia who seems to be fairly on the ball with this.)

Edit: a good job as conditions in the crash area are difficult today.

Bergerie1

14th Jan 2015, 09:03

Volume is correct about the inability of flight simulators to accurately replicate the real aircraft's post stall behaviour. Test pilots do not take commercial aircraft that far into the stall regime, and certainly not at high altitudes, it is simply far too dangerous. Therefore all the models used in simulators for post stall behaviour are based on extrapolated data and wind tunnel experiments.

Pilots should not assume that what they see in the simulator post stall is correct. In fact it is positively dangerous to do so.

I would be very interested to hear from 'those in the know' what the industry is doing about the conclusions of the work done by the IPTC. Why are the regulators dragging their heels over requiring improved training? Are airlines implementing the recommended improvements despite a lack of response by the regulators?

See:- ANALYSIS: Modernising global airline pilot training - 1/12/2015 - Flight Global (http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/analysis-modernising-global-airline-pilot-training-406719/)

Blake777

14th Jan 2015, 09:29

Second picture above appears most telling - consistently with the tail section of the wreckage, the left side of the fuselage appears to be torn away midway along.

Gysbreght

14th Jan 2015, 09:34

It is not required to fly full stalls in flight testing.It depends on what you mean by "full stall". The regulation calls for the speed to be reduced until the stall is identified, and lists the criteria that represent acceptable stall identifications. Recovery is started as soon as the stall is identified, i.e. it is not required to investigate 'deep' penetrations into the stall regime.

zzuf

14th Jan 2015, 09:44

I cannot believe the uniformed nonsense being posted in respect of transport category aircraft stall testing, stall characteristics and what is required to demonstrate compliance with the certification standards.

formationdriver

14th Jan 2015, 09:51

NigelOnDraft: Sorry , but -- without debating the cost & headaches of teaching people how to really fly -- I find the conclusion that this "will kill a lot of pilots" unjustified. In more than 20 years of teaching advanced aerobatics, as well as stalls/spin and unusual attitudes (including, for a time, dozens and dozens of Ab Initio China & Gulf Airline students) I, and my then colleagues, did not have a single aerobatic accident. Pray tell why this should change.

"The solution, if we wish to reduce LoC accidents (which are very rare), is to ensure pilots are genuinely competent in attitude flying, stalls even spins, UP recoveries - and keep current 2-3 times a year minimum. That is an awful lot of aerobatic aircraft hire, and will kill a lot of pilots in accidents. It won't happen, and I suspect we will just continue to see a small number of LoC accidents...

training wheels

14th Jan 2015, 10:12

From the photos of the wing, it looks as though the flaps have been extended?

Owain Glyndwr

14th Jan 2015, 10:13

@zzuf

I cannot believe the uniformed nonsense being posted in respect of transport category aircraft stall testing, stall characteristics and what is required to demonstrate compliance with the certification standards. I take it you meant "uninformed nonsense", in which case I would simply say that Gysbreght is better informed than most posters here on certification as John T may well confirm.

procede

14th Jan 2015, 10:15

It looks more like the flaps have broken off. What you see are the spoilers.

RifRaf3

14th Jan 2015, 10:18

zzuf is right.
Most comments on stalling are by those who have never stalled a swept wing jet at high altitude except once or twice in a simulator and even then not in a massive Cb at night. Certification is not an absolute safety measure; merely a best practice, commercial option that meet statistical requirements.

a

Kerwin

14th Jan 2015, 10:27

Could the scorch marks in the photo on post 1970 be due to a lightning strike?

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03163/airasia-wreckage_3163123b.jpg

zzuf

14th Jan 2015, 10:30

Owain,
JT will also confirm that I was CTP for a regulatory authority. As this is about A320 I must add that I spent plenty of time with the late Nick Warner during various evaluations including stalling.
Cheers

LadyL2013

14th Jan 2015, 10:32

Blimey that is a far more intact fuselage than I was expecting. Does look like a scorch mark on the tail section....

phiggsbroadband

14th Jan 2015, 10:38

Does anyone know what is the speed of response time of the THS ?

Mechanically it is adjusted by a Jackscrew that is wound in or out by motors... Looking at a previous FDR graph of a/p control input, to actual movement, it seems as if it takes in the order of 15 seconds to travel.

In other words the elevator control is not as responsive as on an aerobatic airplane.

susier

14th Jan 2015, 10:47

The scorch marks were not present in earlier images therefore can one assume they are part of the dismantling process?

DrPhillipa

14th Jan 2015, 10:48

It looks like someone has taken a welding torch to it. One wonders also what exactly the guy with the huge crowbar is hoping to achieve.

phiggsbroadband

14th Jan 2015, 10:50

Scorch mark on the tail section....

No sir, the Engineer is cutting it up with an angle grinder.
See previous picture...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7Exxw6IQAIelwy.jpg:large

Gysbreght

14th Jan 2015, 11:05

JT will also confirm that I was CTP for a regulatory authority. As this is about A320 I must add that I spent plenty of time with the late Nick Warner during various evaluations including stalling.I take it you were not referring to my post. Otherwise please indicate what you disagree with.

Almostfamous

14th Jan 2015, 11:06

From the BEA report on AF 447:

"When there are no protections left, the aeroplane no longer possesses positive longitudinal static stability even on approach to stall. This absence specifically results in the fact that it is not necessary to make or increase a nose-up input to compensate for a loss of speed while maintaining aeroplane altitude. This behaviour, even if it may appear contrary to some provisions in the basic regulations, was judged to be acceptable by the certification authorities by taking into account special conditions and interpretation material. Indeed, the presence of flight envelope protections makes neutral longitudinal static stability acceptable.
However, positive longitudinal static stability on an aeroplane can be useful since it allows the pilot to have a sensory return (via the position of the stick) on the situation of his aeroplane in terms of speed in relation to its point of equilibrium (trim) at constant thrust. Specifically, the approach to stall on a classic aeroplane is always associated with a more or less pronounced nose-up input. This is not the case on the A330 in alternate law. The specific consequence is that in this control law the aeroplane, placed in a configuration where the thrust is not sufficient to maintain speed on the flight path, would end up by stalling without any inputs on the sidestick. It appears that this absence of positive static stability could have contributed to the PF not identifying the approach to stall."

captains_log

14th Jan 2015, 11:10

Sorry but even as a non pilot, all this talk about 'push the stick forward and you're saved' is bit insensitive on this thread without knowing what happened.

It certainly didn't help 2 very respectable pilots on D-AXLA A320-232 over Perpignan when THS stayed nose up, with the combination of the AOA sensors freezing and normal law dropping out they were unable to save it with the above aforementioned method. After reading the report, i was worried by the lack of notification to the pilots, in that moment id expect 'USE MAN PITCH TRIM' to be slapping me round the face.
Or a clear indication:

Warning - Normal law FAIL STATUS NOW MANUAL
Cause - AOA/ADIR mismatch(or the like)
Result - USE MAN PITCH TRIM(?(perhaps added flashing if stick forward/backward exceeds Xseconds)) or AUTO PITCH TRIM DISABLED!

Would of been even nicer. (In this instance above i believe the PITCH TRIM warning dropped off the display shortly after ie changing flight law.) i stand to be corrected.

Then again what if the warning is wrong and all of it is sending you up the garden path?

If something similar had happened here im not sure id want to be on-board with ANY pilot at FL25(risky i know) or FL370, in that moment attempting to recover a stall. IMHO the transition from 'automated' to 'manual' and not in 'neutral trim' in the wrong moment without any clear reason is a worry, using any automated transportation.
As we have learnt even the most simple things in that moment to react can go undetected (flaps not extended on takeoff due to FB pulled on warning circuit muting the reminder to pilots they're not extended). Whilst not automated, had there been a clear warning, reaction should/could of saved the day.

I'm also shocked to read about lack of stall training due to lack of capability to do so for some aircraft. And still we have not put more pressure on all airlines to enforce real time streaming on capable aircraft with the rest to follow. MH370 whilst is rare, it needs to be answered it cannot be swiped aside as a statistic as some have mentioned here.

On the plus, I salute the many informative posters on here who clearly are outstanding professionals in their field and appreciate their fascinating analysis and input. I hope all of this debate can be focused on making our airways safer, negating the swiss cheese effect ever happening. Hoping no more families suffer this loss of professionals doing their job and PAX in this way, once we have the ACTUAL cause from the experts.

Anyway what do i know, i can barely fly a quadcopter!