Air Asia Expands in Australia
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Speaking of...news just in.
Air Asia flight from Indonesia to Singapore loses contact with air traffic control: media
Think that paperwork delay might take a bit longer now...
Fuel-Off
Air Asia flight from Indonesia to Singapore loses contact with air traffic control: media
Think that paperwork delay might take a bit longer now...
Fuel-Off
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I have flown as a passenger on Air Asia around 50-60 times and apart from their early days when I sat on some pretty sad old 737-300's my experience has been near enough on time in near enough brand new A320's every time I have flown with them, for a very reasonable price.
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Let's not lower ourselves to hanging the pilots with no facts.
Picture yourself in an organisation that loses a frame - and try to imagine how who'd feel reading dribble like this from Aussie "experts"...
Picture yourself in an organisation that loses a frame - and try to imagine how who'd feel reading dribble like this from Aussie "experts"...
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Thomas cashing in
That **** Geoffrey Thomas is all over the WA news at the moment sprouting so-called words of knowledge and understanding about the missing A320. Perhaps he can assist the Singaporeans with the search? I'm not going to dignify that fool by posting any links to his dribble.
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Thomas thinks that the pilot may have "blundered" into a thunderstorm. As usual, no help at all except to the media who are desperate for information from anyone.
Surely there must be some REAL experts out there to keep the media on the straight and narrow!
It would be nice for a contribution from someone who as had relevant and recent experience flying in this area.
Even I, have had experience flying in this area, but not recent and not relevant aircraft either, so I wouldn't proclaim to be an expert.
Surely there must be some REAL experts out there to keep the media on the straight and narrow!
It would be nice for a contribution from someone who as had relevant and recent experience flying in this area.
Even I, have had experience flying in this area, but not recent and not relevant aircraft either, so I wouldn't proclaim to be an expert.
short flights long nights
We need to start some sort of appeal to shut that GT person up.
Air Asia says missing jet asked to 'deviate' due to weather - Channel NewsAsia
JAKARTA: Air Asia said the pilot of flight QZ8501 that went missing between Indonesia and Singapore early Sunday (Dec 28) had requested "deviation" from the its flight plan because of bad weather.
"The aircraft ... was requesting deviation due to enroute weather," the Malaysia-based carrier said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.
"Communication with the aircraft was lost while it was still under the control of the Indonesian Air Traffic Control (ATC)."
UPDATED STATEMENT FROM AIRASIA AT 1.23PM:
"AirAsia Indonesia regrets to confirm that flight QZ8501 from Surabaya to Singapore has lost contact with air traffic control at 7.24 (Surabaya LT) this morning. The flight took off from Juanda International Airport in Surabaya at 5.35am
90"The aircraft was an Airbus A320-200 with the registration number PK-AXC. There were two pilots, four flight attendants and one engineer on board.The captain in command had a total of 6,100 flying hours and the first officer a total of 2,275 flying hours
"There were 155 passengers on board, with 138 adults, 16 children and 1 infant. Also on board were 2 pilots and 5 cabin crew.
"Nationalities of passengers and crew onboard are as below:
1 Singapore
1 Malaysia
1 France
3 South Korean
156 Indonesia
"At this time, search and rescue operations are being conducted under the guidance of The Indonesia of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). AirAsia Indonesia is cooperating fully and assisting the investigation in every possible way.
"The aircraft was on the submitted flight plan route and was requesting deviation due to enroute weather before communication with the aircraft was lost while it was still under the control of the Indonesian Air Traffic Control (ATC).
"The aircraft had undergone its last scheduled maintenance on 16 November 2014. AirAsia has established an Emergency Call Centre that is available for family or friends of those who may have been on board the aircraft. The number is: +622129850801.
"AirAsia will release further information as soon as it becomes available. Updated information will also be posted on the AirAsia website, www.airasia.com."
- AFP/CNA/by
"The aircraft ... was requesting deviation due to enroute weather," the Malaysia-based carrier said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.
"Communication with the aircraft was lost while it was still under the control of the Indonesian Air Traffic Control (ATC)."
UPDATED STATEMENT FROM AIRASIA AT 1.23PM:
"AirAsia Indonesia regrets to confirm that flight QZ8501 from Surabaya to Singapore has lost contact with air traffic control at 7.24 (Surabaya LT) this morning. The flight took off from Juanda International Airport in Surabaya at 5.35am
90"The aircraft was an Airbus A320-200 with the registration number PK-AXC. There were two pilots, four flight attendants and one engineer on board.The captain in command had a total of 6,100 flying hours and the first officer a total of 2,275 flying hours
"There were 155 passengers on board, with 138 adults, 16 children and 1 infant. Also on board were 2 pilots and 5 cabin crew.
"Nationalities of passengers and crew onboard are as below:
1 Singapore
1 Malaysia
1 France
3 South Korean
156 Indonesia
"At this time, search and rescue operations are being conducted under the guidance of The Indonesia of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). AirAsia Indonesia is cooperating fully and assisting the investigation in every possible way.
"The aircraft was on the submitted flight plan route and was requesting deviation due to enroute weather before communication with the aircraft was lost while it was still under the control of the Indonesian Air Traffic Control (ATC).
"The aircraft had undergone its last scheduled maintenance on 16 November 2014. AirAsia has established an Emergency Call Centre that is available for family or friends of those who may have been on board the aircraft. The number is: +622129850801.
"AirAsia will release further information as soon as it becomes available. Updated information will also be posted on the AirAsia website, www.airasia.com."
- AFP/CNA/by
GT is not alone jumping onto the soapbox and touting himself as an all knowing expert. It appears the other individual quoted in the article has little more experience than loading cargo into the hold.
From another aviation "expert" on the ABC.
"There are two pilots on the flight deck and one would hope that a distress call could be sent out, even in in such an extreme emergency.
"If they were using all their arms and legs to try to save the aircraft, they simply may not have had time to do it."
"If they were using all their arms and legs to try to save the aircraft, they simply may not have had time to do it."
Well yeah, and...
1. Aviate
2.navigate
...
And *lastly*........
Pretty sure every one of us had this drilled into us
1. Aviate
2.navigate
...
And *lastly*........
Pretty sure every one of us had this drilled into us
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Yep got to love the so called self-proclaimed experts, i am sick of it too, GT is just a reporter, he has never Flew or Fixed aircraft. All it takes is someone with more experience then him too stick it too him on air and shut him up for good.
I have to give CNN credit, they actually had a B777 Captain on there chatting about the incident with Air Asia and i think he was there during MAS incidents too. It was refreshing to have someone on that knew what they where talking about
I have to give CNN credit, they actually had a B777 Captain on there chatting about the incident with Air Asia and i think he was there during MAS incidents too. It was refreshing to have someone on that knew what they where talking about
The guy who was interviewed on the ABC (in Oz) who I saw was Péter Marosszéky.
A little bit more experience than GT, looking at this:
Péter Marosszéky | www.wiseheads.com.au
I recall also seeing Trevor Jensen on the telly discussing the MH disappearance. It would appear that Ch 7 are happy to stick with GT just like AJ is happy to have him speak about QF on his behalf when required.
A little bit more experience than GT, looking at this:
Péter Marosszéky | www.wiseheads.com.au
I recall also seeing Trevor Jensen on the telly discussing the MH disappearance. It would appear that Ch 7 are happy to stick with GT just like AJ is happy to have him speak about QF on his behalf when required.
mudguard01
Its driving me nuts seeing this GT being interviewed as an Aviation Expert.
This is the same guy that went on Youtube and stated that he was sitting in a B777 simulator in Perth and this was the only B777 sim in Australia (apparently the one in Silverwater NSW does not exist) Then commenced the take off with the park brake on...
There is no way a professional pilot is going to make comments without facts in this case.
To 73to91 your comments are spot on.
This is the same guy that went on Youtube and stated that he was sitting in a B777 simulator in Perth and this was the only B777 sim in Australia (apparently the one in Silverwater NSW does not exist) Then commenced the take off with the park brake on...
There is no way a professional pilot is going to make comments without facts in this case.
To 73to91 your comments are spot on.
Fairfax article worthy of re-gurgitation.
PW - Impressive resume but not too impressive when interviewed. Out of his depth completely.
Either way I noticed that Fairfax media felt Marosszéky was credentialed enough to be quoted several times in their article - AirAsia flight QZ8501: faces from a lost flight:
AirAsia flight QZ8501: faces from a lost flight
As authorities work to solve the mystery of the plane that crashed in a violent storm, the family of a young flight attendant on board approach their loss with calmness.
MICHAEL BACHELARD, PANGKALANBUN, AND MATT O'SULLIVAN
Last updated 05:30, January 3 2015
Lost: Khairunisa Haidar Fauzi, a trainee flight attendant on AirAsia flight QZ8501.
The only job of Khairunisa Haidar Fauzi was to make her customers feel calm, comfortable, fed, slept and pampered.
This beautiful, 20-year-old Sumatran-born trainee flight attendant was just one member of a massive and growing industry that delivers the comforts of the lounge room to millions of travellers who now jet unworriedly around the globe.
But outside the windows of AirAsia's flight QZ8501 from Surabaya to Singapore early last Sunday morning, some of the most awesome physical forces on earth were brewing in the tropical sky. And, if the latest surmises are correct, despite every engineering marvel and innovation of modern aviation, these forces were conspiring to hurl the Airbus A320 violently to the sea 36,000 feet below.
Khairanisa's body, identifiable from the red-and-black uniform she was wearing and which still bore her name tag, seems to be one of the first to have been pulled from the ocean near where the plane carrying her and 161 others fell that morning. She has now been formally identified, Fairfax Media has confirmed. Her family will fly her body to Palembang, South Sumatra, for burial.
Her father, Haidar Fauzi, has been preternaturally calm about the tragedy that befell his daughter. "We knew the risk our daughter was taking with this job," he says, "so we're prepared."
The risk of flying identified by this bereaved Indonesian villager is something the airline industry is keen to downplay. The might of human ingenuity and technology has focused on reducing aviation's dangers to virtually nothing. But still, according to industry consultant Gerry Soejatman, risks exist.
"As comfortable as we are, and as safe as the statistics are, flying is inherently risky," Soejatman says.
"We rely on the training and the safety systems that have been developed over the years; that's what makes it safe ... and it is safe. But if we are careless, we have to remind ourselves that it is dangerous to fly."
One key danger is the cumulonimbus clouds that develop in the tropics during the monsoon season which, with their huge uptake of water into the atmosphere, drive global weather patterns.
"They can be extremely powerful [and] can overcome the aeroplane; we've know that for years, so there's nothing new. If they hit a cumulonimbus cloud then they're screwed."
Peter Marosszeky, an aviation specialist fellow at the University of NSW, recalls flying a Boeing 747 jumbo many years ago that plunged more than 30,000 feet after hitting an air pocket.
"The smaller the aircraft, the more prone it is to suffer serious control conditions where the pilot can lose control of the aeroplane," he says.
Even so, on early evidence that Soejatman has seen of what happened to QZ8501, the violence of this storm was extreme. It seems to have tossed this 70-tonne, $US90 million marvel of engineering and polymer composites like a toy into the sea at a sense-defying 24,000 feet per minute.
"It didn't fall out of the sky like an aeroplane," Soejatman says. "It was like a piece of metal being thrown down. It's really hard to comprehend ... The way it goes down is bordering on the edge of logic".
That several other flights were in the area at the time and reached their destinations unscathed only deepens the puzzle.
Forensic examination
The crash of AirAsia flight QZ8501 on Sunday in the Java Sea capped off a horror year for airlines based in Malaysia. It began with the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on March 8 – a mystery that still has not been solved despite an Australian-led search of thousands of square kilometres of the southern ocean.
This was followed by the shooting down of another of its Boeing 777 aircrafts over war-torn eastern Ukraine in July with the loss of all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.
At least this week, the families of the victims of the AirAsia flight have a chance to find closure. Their plane has been found, though weather has made it hard to get to the wreckage. Nevertheless, much remains to be explained.
The immediate task for Indonesian investigators will be to retrieve the vital flight-data recorders from what remains on the sea floor of the Karimata Strait. The "black box" – which is actually brightly coloured for visibility – will play a key role.
The plane lies in relatively shallow water of about 50 metres, a far less onerous recovery task than the one confronting authorities searching deep water for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.
The AirAsia A320's cockpit voice recorder will contain up to two hours of recordings, which will allow investigators to listen to QZ8501's 53-year-old Captain Iriyanto and first officer, Frenchman Remi Emmanuel Plesel.
But it is the flight data recorder that holds a larger wealth of information, with up to 72 hours of flight time information about the plane's engine settings, air speed, positions of flight control and altitude.
Investigators already have information from air-traffic control such as voice and radar recordings – particularly from the Mode S transponder system – as well as the weather on the day of the crash from meteorologists.
"The key will be to find those recorders, download them and then see what they tell you. They effectively guide the investigation," Australian Transport Safety Bureau spokesman Joe Hattley says.
"You don't know where you are going until you get good data."
Soejatman says forensic examination of the plane's fuselage, or the remnants of it, will also provide important clues as to the forces that were acting upon it.
Airbus' single-aisle A320s are designed to withstand forces 1.5 times what they would usually encounter in abnormal weather, giving them a significant protective buffer from changes in climate patterns. The plane manufacturer declined to comment on specifics about the AirAsia crash because an investigation is under way.
In the case of QZ8501, Marosszeky says the AirAsia captain seems to have found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Iriyanto, a former Indonesian air-force fighter pilot, sought clearance to climb from 32,000 to 38,000 feet to avoid a storm cell, but did not respond to air-traffic controllers when they gave clearance for a climb to 34,000 a short-time later. The pilots never made a mayday call.
"It appears that he was picked up by an updraft or a clear-air turbulence, which caused the aeroplane to go vertical. That argument is born out by the fact that air-traffic control had noticed that his air speed had really died off," Marosszeky says. "If it did in fact go into stall, then the pilot would have had a lot of trouble getting out of it. You would have to be extremely experienced. But we really don't know precisely what caused it."
Marosszeky says that in most cases pilots can avoid flying into dangerous conditions. "In this particular case, I am a little bit surprised that the aircraft took off and flew into these known conditions," he says.
Computer systems and the latest technologies on-board modern aircraft give pilots a "infinitely larger scope of information". The downside, Marosszeky says, is that aeroplanes have become so complex that pilots have to be astute and highly disciplined to cope with the technological marvels.
He points out that the challenges confronting the pilots of Qantas flight QF32 in November 2010 when their A380 suffered a mid-air engine explosion was a classic example of "how a complex machine can almost cause the aeroplane to crash and burn". Disaster was averted, and the plane was able to make an emergency landing at Singapore without physical injury to passengers or crew, because five experienced pilots were on board.
"If you had lesser pilots with lesser experience you would have a disaster on your hands," he says.
Safety record
The demands on air-safety investigators are enormous in the aftermath of a major crash. The clamour for answers has been exacerbated in the era of social media and 24-hour news, which produces a torrent of often unfounded, but firmly expressed, speculation about the causes of a crash.
The International Civil Aviation Organisation, a part of the United Nations, requires a preliminary report within 30 days of a major incident and a final report within a year. The task of delivering a report within 30 days is made even harder when the vital data recordings take some time to be recovered.
While Indonesian authorities have been praised for their speed and transparency in locating debris from the AirAsia plane, the crash has shone the spotlight on the populous south-east Asian nation's aviation safety record. The US Federal Aviation Administration lists Indonesia as one of nine countries which fail a safety assessment.
European authorities have also banned a long list of Indonesian airlines from flying to Europe due to safety concerns. While Indonesia AirAsia, an offshoot of AirAsia founder and chief executive Tony Fernandes' Kuala Lumpar-based company, was once banned, it has joined flag carrier Garuda and three others in gaining the right to fly to destinations in Europe.
Soejatman says that, though Indonesian aviation has had a patchy record, he is confident that it's improving. On a vast, mountainous archipelago, with appalling road infrastructure and a minimal port network, air travel is growing as fast as the burgeoning Indonesian middle class can afford to buy a ticket to destinations in both their own country and others.
Between them, privately owned Indonesian carrier Lion Air and AirAsia have ordered more than 800 aircraft – one of the fastest growths of an airline capacity at any time in history. Indonesia's air traffic has increased five-fold since 2004 and now they country's airports, particularly the chronically clogged Soekarno-Hatta in Jakarta, are reaching the limits of their capacity.
Even so, Soejatman says the country is slowly sorting out its problems. The number of accidents is falling each year and the rate per million passengers has seen "a massive reduction".
The challenge is to keep that going despite the ongoing growth in the number of planes in the air and the massive demand for a limited global pool of pilots, engineers and crew.
With the grim task of recovering the bodies of passengers and crew still under way, this crash presents AirAsia chief executive Tony Fernandes with one of the biggest tests of his career.
His $1 investment in an airline with just two planes in 2001 has grown to span Asia with a fleet of almost 170 aircraft. It has carried almost as many passengers as Indonesia has people.
Similar to Jetstar, AirAsia has adopted a strategy of expanding by setting up affiliate airlines such as Indonesia AirAsia in which the central company has a minority stake – but management control – to get around regulatory barriers.
But the quickest way for an airline to go bust is to suffer a fatal plane crash. Malaysia Airlines' loss of two Boeing 777 aircraft in 2014 effectively resulted in the need for the Malaysian government to bail it out.
So far Fernandes has played his hand well – he appeared at the scene of the tragedy and in front of bereaved families; he apologised, promised to pay virtually open-ended compensation and to fix any problems the investigation finds. But his troubles were compounded on Tuesday when an AirAsia plane overshot a runway at Kalibo in the Philippines, forcing passengers to use emergency slides.
"You have to be a very big airline to survive an accident," ATSB spokesman Stuart Godley says. "Any significant accident has bankrupted most airlines, and it is really only the big airlines that have survived."
In the short term Fernandes, who has had many fleeting talks with successive Qantas management teams over the years about alliances, has insisted that bookings on AirAsia flights remain strong. He has tweeted numerous pictures of happy customers, and expressions of support, since the crash.
Australia's largest travel company, Flight Centre, doubts the tragedy will curb consumers' appetite to travel.
Australia and International Pilots Association treasurer Adam Susz also points out that the A320 aeroplane – a workhorse for airlines such as Jetstar and Air New Zealand – is one of the most popular and reliable in the world. "We want to reassure people that flying is an incredibly safe activity and events like this [AirAsia crash] are incredibly rare," he says.
It's both true and reassuring, though it offers no consolation to the families of the 162 passengers and crew who were killed going about their business on the morning of December 28.
For some, perhaps, particularly in Muslim-majority Indonesia, consolation may only be sought where Khairunisa's father, Haidar finds it.
"We only borrowed our daughter from God," he says serenely. "And now he has taken her back."
- Fairfax Media Australia
As authorities work to solve the mystery of the plane that crashed in a violent storm, the family of a young flight attendant on board approach their loss with calmness.
MICHAEL BACHELARD, PANGKALANBUN, AND MATT O'SULLIVAN
Last updated 05:30, January 3 2015
Lost: Khairunisa Haidar Fauzi, a trainee flight attendant on AirAsia flight QZ8501.
The only job of Khairunisa Haidar Fauzi was to make her customers feel calm, comfortable, fed, slept and pampered.
This beautiful, 20-year-old Sumatran-born trainee flight attendant was just one member of a massive and growing industry that delivers the comforts of the lounge room to millions of travellers who now jet unworriedly around the globe.
But outside the windows of AirAsia's flight QZ8501 from Surabaya to Singapore early last Sunday morning, some of the most awesome physical forces on earth were brewing in the tropical sky. And, if the latest surmises are correct, despite every engineering marvel and innovation of modern aviation, these forces were conspiring to hurl the Airbus A320 violently to the sea 36,000 feet below.
Khairanisa's body, identifiable from the red-and-black uniform she was wearing and which still bore her name tag, seems to be one of the first to have been pulled from the ocean near where the plane carrying her and 161 others fell that morning. She has now been formally identified, Fairfax Media has confirmed. Her family will fly her body to Palembang, South Sumatra, for burial.
Her father, Haidar Fauzi, has been preternaturally calm about the tragedy that befell his daughter. "We knew the risk our daughter was taking with this job," he says, "so we're prepared."
The risk of flying identified by this bereaved Indonesian villager is something the airline industry is keen to downplay. The might of human ingenuity and technology has focused on reducing aviation's dangers to virtually nothing. But still, according to industry consultant Gerry Soejatman, risks exist.
"As comfortable as we are, and as safe as the statistics are, flying is inherently risky," Soejatman says.
"We rely on the training and the safety systems that have been developed over the years; that's what makes it safe ... and it is safe. But if we are careless, we have to remind ourselves that it is dangerous to fly."
One key danger is the cumulonimbus clouds that develop in the tropics during the monsoon season which, with their huge uptake of water into the atmosphere, drive global weather patterns.
"They can be extremely powerful [and] can overcome the aeroplane; we've know that for years, so there's nothing new. If they hit a cumulonimbus cloud then they're screwed."
Peter Marosszeky, an aviation specialist fellow at the University of NSW, recalls flying a Boeing 747 jumbo many years ago that plunged more than 30,000 feet after hitting an air pocket.
"The smaller the aircraft, the more prone it is to suffer serious control conditions where the pilot can lose control of the aeroplane," he says.
Even so, on early evidence that Soejatman has seen of what happened to QZ8501, the violence of this storm was extreme. It seems to have tossed this 70-tonne, $US90 million marvel of engineering and polymer composites like a toy into the sea at a sense-defying 24,000 feet per minute.
"It didn't fall out of the sky like an aeroplane," Soejatman says. "It was like a piece of metal being thrown down. It's really hard to comprehend ... The way it goes down is bordering on the edge of logic".
That several other flights were in the area at the time and reached their destinations unscathed only deepens the puzzle.
Forensic examination
The crash of AirAsia flight QZ8501 on Sunday in the Java Sea capped off a horror year for airlines based in Malaysia. It began with the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on March 8 – a mystery that still has not been solved despite an Australian-led search of thousands of square kilometres of the southern ocean.
This was followed by the shooting down of another of its Boeing 777 aircrafts over war-torn eastern Ukraine in July with the loss of all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.
At least this week, the families of the victims of the AirAsia flight have a chance to find closure. Their plane has been found, though weather has made it hard to get to the wreckage. Nevertheless, much remains to be explained.
The immediate task for Indonesian investigators will be to retrieve the vital flight-data recorders from what remains on the sea floor of the Karimata Strait. The "black box" – which is actually brightly coloured for visibility – will play a key role.
The plane lies in relatively shallow water of about 50 metres, a far less onerous recovery task than the one confronting authorities searching deep water for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.
The AirAsia A320's cockpit voice recorder will contain up to two hours of recordings, which will allow investigators to listen to QZ8501's 53-year-old Captain Iriyanto and first officer, Frenchman Remi Emmanuel Plesel.
But it is the flight data recorder that holds a larger wealth of information, with up to 72 hours of flight time information about the plane's engine settings, air speed, positions of flight control and altitude.
Investigators already have information from air-traffic control such as voice and radar recordings – particularly from the Mode S transponder system – as well as the weather on the day of the crash from meteorologists.
"The key will be to find those recorders, download them and then see what they tell you. They effectively guide the investigation," Australian Transport Safety Bureau spokesman Joe Hattley says.
"You don't know where you are going until you get good data."
Soejatman says forensic examination of the plane's fuselage, or the remnants of it, will also provide important clues as to the forces that were acting upon it.
Airbus' single-aisle A320s are designed to withstand forces 1.5 times what they would usually encounter in abnormal weather, giving them a significant protective buffer from changes in climate patterns. The plane manufacturer declined to comment on specifics about the AirAsia crash because an investigation is under way.
In the case of QZ8501, Marosszeky says the AirAsia captain seems to have found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Iriyanto, a former Indonesian air-force fighter pilot, sought clearance to climb from 32,000 to 38,000 feet to avoid a storm cell, but did not respond to air-traffic controllers when they gave clearance for a climb to 34,000 a short-time later. The pilots never made a mayday call.
"It appears that he was picked up by an updraft or a clear-air turbulence, which caused the aeroplane to go vertical. That argument is born out by the fact that air-traffic control had noticed that his air speed had really died off," Marosszeky says. "If it did in fact go into stall, then the pilot would have had a lot of trouble getting out of it. You would have to be extremely experienced. But we really don't know precisely what caused it."
Marosszeky says that in most cases pilots can avoid flying into dangerous conditions. "In this particular case, I am a little bit surprised that the aircraft took off and flew into these known conditions," he says.
Computer systems and the latest technologies on-board modern aircraft give pilots a "infinitely larger scope of information". The downside, Marosszeky says, is that aeroplanes have become so complex that pilots have to be astute and highly disciplined to cope with the technological marvels.
He points out that the challenges confronting the pilots of Qantas flight QF32 in November 2010 when their A380 suffered a mid-air engine explosion was a classic example of "how a complex machine can almost cause the aeroplane to crash and burn". Disaster was averted, and the plane was able to make an emergency landing at Singapore without physical injury to passengers or crew, because five experienced pilots were on board.
"If you had lesser pilots with lesser experience you would have a disaster on your hands," he says.
Safety record
The demands on air-safety investigators are enormous in the aftermath of a major crash. The clamour for answers has been exacerbated in the era of social media and 24-hour news, which produces a torrent of often unfounded, but firmly expressed, speculation about the causes of a crash.
The International Civil Aviation Organisation, a part of the United Nations, requires a preliminary report within 30 days of a major incident and a final report within a year. The task of delivering a report within 30 days is made even harder when the vital data recordings take some time to be recovered.
While Indonesian authorities have been praised for their speed and transparency in locating debris from the AirAsia plane, the crash has shone the spotlight on the populous south-east Asian nation's aviation safety record. The US Federal Aviation Administration lists Indonesia as one of nine countries which fail a safety assessment.
European authorities have also banned a long list of Indonesian airlines from flying to Europe due to safety concerns. While Indonesia AirAsia, an offshoot of AirAsia founder and chief executive Tony Fernandes' Kuala Lumpar-based company, was once banned, it has joined flag carrier Garuda and three others in gaining the right to fly to destinations in Europe.
Soejatman says that, though Indonesian aviation has had a patchy record, he is confident that it's improving. On a vast, mountainous archipelago, with appalling road infrastructure and a minimal port network, air travel is growing as fast as the burgeoning Indonesian middle class can afford to buy a ticket to destinations in both their own country and others.
Between them, privately owned Indonesian carrier Lion Air and AirAsia have ordered more than 800 aircraft – one of the fastest growths of an airline capacity at any time in history. Indonesia's air traffic has increased five-fold since 2004 and now they country's airports, particularly the chronically clogged Soekarno-Hatta in Jakarta, are reaching the limits of their capacity.
Even so, Soejatman says the country is slowly sorting out its problems. The number of accidents is falling each year and the rate per million passengers has seen "a massive reduction".
The challenge is to keep that going despite the ongoing growth in the number of planes in the air and the massive demand for a limited global pool of pilots, engineers and crew.
With the grim task of recovering the bodies of passengers and crew still under way, this crash presents AirAsia chief executive Tony Fernandes with one of the biggest tests of his career.
His $1 investment in an airline with just two planes in 2001 has grown to span Asia with a fleet of almost 170 aircraft. It has carried almost as many passengers as Indonesia has people.
Similar to Jetstar, AirAsia has adopted a strategy of expanding by setting up affiliate airlines such as Indonesia AirAsia in which the central company has a minority stake – but management control – to get around regulatory barriers.
But the quickest way for an airline to go bust is to suffer a fatal plane crash. Malaysia Airlines' loss of two Boeing 777 aircraft in 2014 effectively resulted in the need for the Malaysian government to bail it out.
So far Fernandes has played his hand well – he appeared at the scene of the tragedy and in front of bereaved families; he apologised, promised to pay virtually open-ended compensation and to fix any problems the investigation finds. But his troubles were compounded on Tuesday when an AirAsia plane overshot a runway at Kalibo in the Philippines, forcing passengers to use emergency slides.
"You have to be a very big airline to survive an accident," ATSB spokesman Stuart Godley says. "Any significant accident has bankrupted most airlines, and it is really only the big airlines that have survived."
In the short term Fernandes, who has had many fleeting talks with successive Qantas management teams over the years about alliances, has insisted that bookings on AirAsia flights remain strong. He has tweeted numerous pictures of happy customers, and expressions of support, since the crash.
Australia's largest travel company, Flight Centre, doubts the tragedy will curb consumers' appetite to travel.
Australia and International Pilots Association treasurer Adam Susz also points out that the A320 aeroplane – a workhorse for airlines such as Jetstar and Air New Zealand – is one of the most popular and reliable in the world. "We want to reassure people that flying is an incredibly safe activity and events like this [AirAsia crash] are incredibly rare," he says.
It's both true and reassuring, though it offers no consolation to the families of the 162 passengers and crew who were killed going about their business on the morning of December 28.
For some, perhaps, particularly in Muslim-majority Indonesia, consolation may only be sought where Khairunisa's father, Haidar finds it.
"We only borrowed our daughter from God," he says serenely. "And now he has taken her back."
- Fairfax Media Australia
Gives me some hope that the true art of responsible, factually correct and credible journalism has not been totally lost in the 24/7 MSM scramble for the next cr
p sound-bite emanating from the likes of a shonk like Geoffrey Thomas...
Mr Marosseky mis quoted again. Those pesky airpockets. Lost 30000ft ??He was flying??
"Peter Marosszeky, an aviation specialist fellow at the University of NSW, recalls flying a Boeing 747 jumbo many years ago that plunged more than 30,000 feet after hitting an air pocket."
If a flight never took off when thunderstorms en route or Cat forecast the skies would be peaceful.In 45+ plus years I managed to avoid dangerous conditions completely. Challenging sometimes but thats the job.
"Marosszeky says that in most cases pilots can avoid flying into dangerous conditions. In this particular case, I am a little bit surprised that the aircraft took off and flew into these known conditions," he says.
"Peter Marosszeky, an aviation specialist fellow at the University of NSW, recalls flying a Boeing 747 jumbo many years ago that plunged more than 30,000 feet after hitting an air pocket."
If a flight never took off when thunderstorms en route or Cat forecast the skies would be peaceful.In 45+ plus years I managed to avoid dangerous conditions completely. Challenging sometimes but thats the job.
"Marosszeky says that in most cases pilots can avoid flying into dangerous conditions. In this particular case, I am a little bit surprised that the aircraft took off and flew into these known conditions," he says.