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Air Asia Indonesia Lost Contact from Surabaya to Singapore

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Air Asia Indonesia Lost Contact from Surabaya to Singapore

Old 3rd Jan 2015, 15:31
  #1101 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by glendalegoon
AGAIN, any airbus guys ...CAN THE PLANE JUST HOLD PITCH AND WINGS LEVEL BASED ONLY ON GYRO AND NOT WITH AIRSPEED OR ALTIMETER INPUTS?

and

underslung engines...well a long time ago most of us realized that if you add power the nose goes up

so, throttles forward, stick forward and everything is dandy
How?

Thrust will lift the nose, and the elevators don't have enough effect (due to low airspeed) to correct.

Not so dandy.
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 15:48
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AirAsia Flight 8501 did not have permission to fly to Singapore on the day it crashed into the Java Sea, transport officials have said ...................

However, the company was only authorised to fly that route on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, Indonesia’s transport ministry said.

"It violated the route permit given, the schedule given, that's the problem," Djoko Murjatmodjo, the head of air transport, told AFP on Saturday.

It was not immediately clear why AirAsia had been flying that day if it did not have permission. All the company’s flights from Surabaya to Singapore have now been ordered to stop. The transport ministry has announced a full review of all AirAsia flights.
Presumably a flight plan was filed so I do wonder how the (supposed) breach of operating permit can be deemed as 'the problem'.
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 16:08
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On topic, eh?

Is there any chance this thread could stay on topic, i.e. AirAsia 8501?

At this point for every one post about 8501, there are 20 posts about other flights, that are supposed, through some assumed causal relation to 8501, but mostly that link is simply "they crashed"....

There is some news from the search teams, there is some wreckage being recovered, so why aren't the clues that this information that is available being discussed?

One thing we can rule out is the aircraft landed intact on the ocean surface as some of the more radical news outlets tried to propose. I say this based on the wreckage we have seen pictures of and the number of bodies.

However, can we rule out some level of in-flight breakup at this point? I feel not, however if there is any evidence to the contrary let's discuss.

But all this talk of other aircraft loses seems at best a waste of bandwidth. We have no idea which, if any of these, are related. I suspect we can only start down that path when the FDR/CVR data is available.
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 16:42
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Originally Posted by Capetonian
Presumably a flight plan was filed so I do wonder how the (supposed) breach of operating permit can be deemed as 'the problem'.
Funny enough, the CAAS from Singapore reported that Air Asia had approval from them to operate daily. This is quite typical of Indonesian bureaucracy to focus on petty things such as this to distract the world away from the bigger issues. It has been reported that the new Minister for Transport Ignasius Jonan stormed in to the headquarters of Indonesia Air Asia yelling and screaming at flight operations staff demanding why the Air Asia flight could have departed without receiving a weather briefing from the briefing office.

The simple answer was probably, that early in the morning, none of his briefing officers were ready for duty. I've operated from Surabaya for 4 years often doing the early morning red eye from Surabaya to Bali with a 0600 departure. We call Juanda ground at 0550 for ATC clearance and push back and often there is no answer because the airport doesn't officially open until 0600. If you take off before 0600, then there is a 2 million rupiah fine and some carriers like Air Asia and Citilink seem to be happy to pay the fine so that they can maintain their schedules.

Because of this, our dispatchers and most other airlines also too, obtained weather information from the Bureau of Meterology through their online service, when the Briefing office was 'unavailable'. And according to this article, the Indonesian DGCA does not have a problem with that, which pretty much puts egg on the face of the Minister for Transport.

Last edited by training wheels; 3rd Jan 2015 at 16:52. Reason: spelling
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 16:44
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Coincidentally a very interesting discussion on BBC R4 this morning from the author of "The Glass Cage" concerning man's interaction with automation - listen to the end to hear quite a lot about aviation.

Here is the link - start listening at 1.20.55:-

The Glass Cage
Interesting indeed.
I saw this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt8ooCms4sE

and you clearly understand why planes goes down once the automation fails.
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 16:48
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Garage Years : Quote
"Is there any chance this thread could stay on topic, i.e. AirAsia 8501?
At this point for every one post about 8501, there are 20 posts about other flights, that are supposed, through some assumed causal relation to 8501, but mostly that link is simply "they crashed"....
There is some news from the search teams, there is some wreckage being recovered, so why aren't the clues that this information that is available being discussed?
One thing we can rule out is the aircraft landed intact on the ocean surface as some of the more radical news outlets tried to propose. I say this based on the wreckage we have seen pictures of and the number of bodies.
However, can we rule out some level of in-flight breakup at this point? I feel not, however if there is any evidence to the contrary let's discuss.
But all this talk of other aircraft loses seems at best a waste of bandwidth. We have no idea which, if any of these, are related. I suspect we can only start down that path when the FDR/CVR data is available. "
- GY
......So, are you prohibited to posting links to the news and clues you referenced?
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 16:50
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Looks like the Indonesian authorities are having trouble locating the family of the first officer to request DNA from them for identification. This article suggests that his family is from the Caribbean islands but they no longer reside there, thus the authorities requesting the help of Interpol to locate them.
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 16:55
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His mother has been on French TV a couple of times already. Some people knew where to find her...
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 17:00
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Socio-cultural aspect of the crash

I've seen a couple of posts on here about cultural issues, and I thought I'd inject some thoughts. I'm a strategic communications professional with over 10 years experience in crisis communications, speak Japanese and Indonesian (both pretty badly these days, sadly), and have worked in both countries, as well as a bunch of other places.

I would request that we please stop using the term "Asia." Both my undergrad and grad degrees are from academic departments calling themselves "Asian Studies," but on the first day in each, we were told that "Asia refers to a land mass if you're not too hung up about accuracy," and nothing else. If you say "Asian" to someone in the US, they likely will think of China/Japan/Korea, if you say "Asian" to someone in the UK, they likely will think of India or Pakistan. Indonesia is as different from either of those as it is from Iowa.

The cultural aspect of this investigation is going to be really complex, because it involves: a Javanese pilot with military and civilian experience, a French pilot with civilian piloting and corporate experience, probably Javanese ATC--all of whom were operating in a third language: English. And, the pilots were further influenced by whatever corporate culture exists at Air Asia. So that's what, at least seven cultures interacting? There is some evidence that just the use of the foreign language can actually make one behave in a way that's less culturally native.

So my thoughts on how to do the socio-cultural analysis of this: 1) wait until the cockpit voice recorder is recovered so we can do content analysis of the interaction between the captain, first officer, and ATC; 2) wait until interviews are done of people who knew the pilot and first officer and knew something about how they worked together; 3) stop using the term "Asian" to describe the relevant culture here. Communication during the flight could be relevant to figuring out what went wrong: discussion between the pilots about the weather, their plans on how to deal with it, their communication as stress levels soared during the final few minutes.

Sorry for this long post on something that ultimately probably will be a bit tangential to the investigation, but I've spent my career battling bad decisions based on poorly-informed stereotypes of socio-cultural norms in "Asia."


***speculation*** Having said that, I'll now deal a couple of stereotypes about Javanese: many people expect "Asians" to have a hierarchical culture because they carry stereotypes of NE Asia (China, Japan, Korea) when they refer to "Asia." But, Javanese tend (tend!) to be far more consensus-driven than hierarchical. They tend to like to discuss issues at length, usually asking the other side what they think first, and only then offering their view of the facts. They often will say what they think you want to hear before making requests (that really are requirements or orders), and then verbally, at least, end in ambiguity. This takes place in the context of respect (different from deference) for elders. That, of course, might go straight down the tubes when dealing with an experienced military officer sitting in what he might have thought of as his "home turf"--the cockpit.

Finally, having read this forum and the one about MH370 with great interest, I think my next lunchtime hobby should be a socio-cultural study of the pilots and engineers on this forum.
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 17:02
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Sister too:

AirAsia QZ8501: Co-pilot Remi Plesel's sister pays tribute to 'excellent' pilot, says he dreamed of flying - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

I think they're looking for help in getting DNA / dental data for identification, not in physically locating the family.
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 17:03
  #1111 (permalink)  
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Total BS :The mother of the FO was interviewed on French TV a couple of times . and he was very well known in the French Caribbean islands for helping young locals to become pilots .
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 17:17
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Being a SLF, for the past 20 years in Asia...

I would not trust anything that is coming out of Indonesian Authorities....
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 17:24
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Originally Posted by one dot right
Could somebody please explain why airbus
can't fit their aircraft with pitot static probes with
enough 'oomph' so that they don't ice up in a CB when
you really need them to be working?
OK, I'll have a go at this one.

(It's not really (just) Airbus's problem, since it's the probe manufacturer that qualifies the probe, not the OEM, but the OEM does end up holding the bag at some point)

They can't just add more oomph because the nature of the problem is different (assuming we're talking about ice crystal contamination and not classical inflight icing) - just making the probes hotter doesn't help, as the part affected isn't protected at all. And we still don't really understand the whole phenomenon, though people do know a lot more now than 5 or ten years ago. It's hard to design against a vaguely-defined threat. I'm not even sure there were test facilities that could reproduce the conditions until quite recently.

In fact, IIRC, Airbus had an internal probe spec which was somewhat more severe than the industry minimum Part 25 Appendix C, but that has proven to not be enough in some cases.
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 17:27
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Four large parts of missing jet found off Borneo coast

AirAsia QZ8501: Four large parts of missing jet found off Borneo coast, search for bodies continues

Recovery teams found two big parts of the AirAsia plane in the Java Sea off the island of Borneo late on Friday night.

Mr Soelistyo said another two sections, the largest of which was around 18 metres long, were located on Saturday.

Another official, Supriyadi, who is coordinating the operation from the port of Pangkalan Bun in Borneo, said earlier that
poor visibility had hampered efforts to capture images of the objects with underwater remote operating vehicles (ROVs).

"The visibility is only two metres," he said. "It's cloudy, making it difficult for the cameras to detect."
To add: I believe the A320 is only 40m long, so if the 18m part they found is part of the fuselage (unclear from the report) then that's a large section of the aircraft.
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 17:28
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Regarding AAMP and AA training with the rudder years ago, mentioned in a post a few pages back:

In AA587 the FO was using the rudder only when full aileron was not arresting the bank, contrary to what some may believe. He didn't automatically just bang the rudder to stop the turn.

As many of you well know, Airbus (thanks to the NTSB making sure an aircraft manufacturer didn't get blamed) dodged a huge bullet by not being assigned the blame in this crash due to a highly sensitive and somewhat primitive rudder limiter that was never properly explained to its A300 customers. In effect, the FO of 587 was dealing with a monster that nobody quite knew about. Little did he (or anyone, at the time) know that only 2 inches or so of rudder travel at 240kts was resulting in full rudder deflection.

So, the timeline goes somewhat like this: first wake turbulence encounter, severe roll. Full opposite aileron, no effect. Opposite Rudder comes in with around 2 inches of pedal, bang, full rudder deflection. Severe roll in opposite direction. Full opposite aileron, no effect. 2 inches opposite rudder pedal, bang, full opposite rudder deflection. Another roll reversal. Rinse and repeat, tail comes off due to the rapid (unintentional) rudder reversals.

As you can see, 1) the FO was only applying rudder pressure when full opposite aileron was not helping, and 2) he did not know that only around 2 inches of rudder pedal pressure was deploying full rudder deflection. This is the fact that Airbus did not explain to its customers regarding its antiquated rudder limiter on the A300-600 series, and the NTSB and political pressure made darn sure airbus did not get blamed for this tragedy.

Any pilot on this forum (or in the world) would have reacted just as FO Sten Molin did that day. Uncontrollable bank and full aileron doesn't arrest it? Start bringing in the rudder. We would have had no idea as to the monster we'd be dealing with regarding the A300 rudder limiter. Neither did he.

The AAMP program provided a very convenient vehicle for the NTSB to help in assigning blame to the flight crew. I'd like to point out, however, having gone through the AAMP program, that the instructors (and program) always emphasized that you only used rudder when the ailerons aren't being effective in arresting the roll rate. There was NEVER any talk about strictly using the rudders without ailerons, nor using the rudder aggressively.

My point in this post is twofold: 1) tell the facts as they were, and 2) realize that the NTSB has a political agenda just like any government agency and sometimes needs to protect certain parties when bigger things are at stake. The aa587 NTSB report is a perfect example: it conveniently circumvents the real issues at stake (the A300 rudder limiter) and uses a training program to help assign blame to the flight crew, all in order to protect Airbus.
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 17:41
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Type1106

Anything with a heating element in it can fail, whether it be a valve in an ancient TV or a pitot probe. When I was involved in that sort of thing we used to replace them more often than I wanted (Boeing aircraft).
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 18:21
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Of course it can....

Absolutely yes, failed components are an operating hazard.....but really something as simple albeit important (and I choose not to use the word critical, only because it shouldn't be a critical loss) should not result in the circumstances being guessed at here and likened to the AF loss? If they are so critical then duplicity and triple redundancy should without doubt be the next step......

If it's just loss of formerly selective radial scanned info does Power, Attitude and Trim not give you time or at least something to hang your hat on while you diagnose?
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 18:29
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The wings can be "unloaded" to the extent the aircraft would be still under control, albeit with zero G, as in a hyperbolic maneuver. I have been in aircraft flown and still be under control at well below the published stall speed.
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 18:31
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Schedule Violation

Looks like the airline failed to grease the right palms....

Now I'd imagine Air Asia Indonesia will be firing their fixer...er, sorry....I mean "government liaison officer" ;-)
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Old 3rd Jan 2015, 18:44
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Display of dignity

The distinguishing feature of this recovery operation is the dignity which the Indonesian armed forces and police are showing to the victims and to the world.

Everyone involved is dressed immaculately in starched and pressed uniform, polished boots, body bags handled swiftly with humility, lines of guards of honour saluting makeshift coffins. There are traditional floral tributes on every coffin even though the occupant is only a number.

This is humanity and respect for fellow man at its very best in a country which has had more than its share of ethnic conflict over the last 20 years. Most of the victims are ethnic Chinese, and many are Christians. The recovery teams seem to be mostly ethnic Indo-Malay folk who are probably Muslims.

I am full of admiration for this respect, when compared with the contempt shown by so-called Europeans in the East of Ukraine for the victims of MH 17, many of whom were left to rot in turnip fields and only slung into a refrigerated rail truck by unkempt militia after days of doing nothing.
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