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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 5th Jan 2015, 20:33
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@ Swordfish11

I posted those pictures to reinforce the human aspect of this tragedy. Some posters in this thread seem to overlook that element.
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Old 5th Jan 2015, 20:35
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Observation and question

My only involvement in air travel is as a frequent passenger so I have a great interest in this but little knowledge. Consequently I hope someone can help me understand the potential meaning of an observation from the photos of the seats a few posts back.

Some of the photos show oxygen masks and tubing wrapped around the seat frames. My understanding is that these are 'dropped' from the ceiling when needed. Is it fair to conclude that they must have been deployed prior to impact, or is it possible that this could have occurred due to the final impact? I would have thought the latter unlikely so am wondering if anyone knows of a precedent, perhaps.
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Old 5th Jan 2015, 20:39
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@Broadlands

grim and uncomfortable at times, but twisted wreckage and body bags are undeniably the tragic result of many air disasters.

I personally find it only fitting that those unfortunate souls should be represented as more than a "statistic" of this incident, and see nothing undignified in the above set of photos. Morgue images are another story...
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Old 5th Jan 2015, 20:39
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RGN01, I would suggest it happened upon impact and then with the breakup of the fuselage with water swirling through it. The latches on the oxy mask enclosures are not that robust. The over head panels on the 320 are not that robust anyway.
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Old 5th Jan 2015, 20:40
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I think the red panel with the oblique edge in the first picture here corresponds to the panel just above where the flap meets the fuselage in this photo.
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Old 5th Jan 2015, 20:41
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Core Icing??

The Globe and Mail is reporting;

Ice to blame for downing of AirAsia jetliner, report suggests - The Globe and Mail


In a 14-page report, the Indonesian weather office said engine damage due to ice was “the most probable weather phenomenon” at play in the crash of the Airbus A320-200, which had 162 on board.

The meteorological data raised the possibility that Flight 8501 was downed by a phenomenon that NASA has called a “modern-day aviation mystery.” In the right conditions, the core of a jet engine that normally operates at 1,600 degrees Celsius can be so badly frozen it slows, or shuts down altogether.

More than 200 examples of such ice-induced “power-loss” have been reported in the past quarter-century, with at least one aircraft gliding into a “dead-stick” landing, without any power, its pilots unable to restart the engines. Most of the incidents have occurred in the south-east Asia region, near large convective storms like the ones AirAsia Flight 8501 encountered on its flight path Dec. 28.

The unique kind of icing involves clouds of ice particles, some as small as a grain of flour, and is different from the traditional kind of wing and engine icing that Canadian flyers are familiar with, after seeing aircraft sprayed with a chemical solution to prevent problems in wintertime. That more typical icing involves supercooled water that is not present above 22,000 feet of altitude. Flight 8501 had been cruising at 32,000 feet.

Ice particles are a different problem, and a much more difficult one that the industry has spent years struggling to study and solve.

Unlike thunderstorms, ice particles are largely invisible on aircraft radar and can be located as far as 50 kilometres from a cloud mass. They don’t crust wings with ice and don’t trigger aircraft ice detectors, making them even harder to spot. They aren’t even always associated with the worst possible weather: pilots have said their flight conditions were unremarkable, with only light turbulence and something that looked like rain, when engines suddenly shut down.

Industry and government began studying the problem a decade ago, after a raft of unexplained losses of power – some of them severe, including one where the pilot re-started engines only 1,300 feet above the ocean. Aviation engineers had traditionally believed a modern aircraft was immune to problems from ice particles, which they thought would bounce harmlessly off the skin of a plane, and be melted by the the inner workings of a jet engine. Instead, it grew clear that somehow dense clouds of particles were actually cooling the inside of the engine enough to cause freezing.

A 2006 academic paper co-authored by Boeing, aircraft-system maker Honeywell and an Environment Canada scientist, provided a comprehensive descriptions of what had gone wrong, studying dozens of ice particle icing events. One incident the paper studied suggested very heavy snow could have the same effect. But it also pointed out that knowledge gaps were large: “There have been very limited measurements of the microphysical properties of deep convective clouds to date.”

It remains unclear precisely how ice particle icing happens, however, or how exactly to prevent it. Scientists, including some from Environment Canada, have used a Gulfstream business jet to look for ice particles off the coast of Australia, but that is expensive work – and difficult. The particles can act like a sandblaster on measuring instruments. The National Research Council in Ottawa has also done lab tests on ice particles.

It wasn’t until 2013 that a specialized NASA research facility in Ohio was able to recreate the high-altitude icing conditions that shut down a running test engine. Late in 2013, Boeing and engine-maker General Electric began testing a software upgrade designed to help prevent engine loss, after a Boeing-747 freighter run by Russian-owned AirBridge Cargo experienced ice particle-induced problems that damaged three of its four engines.

Boeing, at the time, promised new algorithms that would help detect the buildup of ice, and use existing engine valves to eject it.

The ice particle problem is nonetheless a vexing one for an industry that spends tremendous time and money on ensuring it can operate in all kinds of ugly conditions. General Electric recently opened a cold-weather testing facility in Winnipeg, for example.

“They throw blocks of ice into these engines and shoot frozen chickens and everything else into them trying to get them to fail,” said Jim La Spina, who joined General Electric in 1979 and rose to be in charge of its military and commercial engine programs. He is now president of Strategic Turbine Inventory Group, LLC, which provides parts for turbine engines.

With the crashed AirAsia flight, he said he suspects the pilots “lost control of the aircraft altogether. They probably lost power, they probably lost instrumentation and everything else based on the severity of the weather.”
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Old 5th Jan 2015, 21:21
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If you select the "permalink" address next to the post number, and right click on it, you can copy and save that link address which will withstand any number of changes to the thread as the mods clean out stuff.

Then, you select the link tool (the globe with a chain link) and use that, or just paste the link address. I'll do it for your post.

Permalink.

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/5...ml#post8812007

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Old 5th Jan 2015, 21:54
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Sonar

They have been talking about large pieces of wreckage for several days, has anyone seen any side scan sonar images?
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Old 5th Jan 2015, 22:00
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Originally Posted by andrekik
They have been talking about large pieces of wreckage for several days, has anyone seen any side scan sonar images?
only one I've seen so far http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/5...ml#post8809086
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Old 5th Jan 2015, 22:32
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Bottom-less Seats

Seat cushions are designed to be used as flotation aids - so they have likely just floated away.
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Old 5th Jan 2015, 22:39
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A forum member recently PM'd me to remind me that I'd posted a well-written Wall Street Journal article on the icing risk for engines back in 2008. I agree this could be relevant here:

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/3...own-peril.html
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Old 5th Jan 2015, 23:03
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Wonder if this is the reason why the flight moved up 2 hours ahead of schedule and/or was it for wx?
CNN quoted someone who missed the flight saying "They emailed and called us on December 15 and 16 to inform us, but we missed those calls". So the flight time was changed two weeks earlier, which means it wasn't for wx.
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Old 5th Jan 2015, 23:14
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Do not refer to the ever-changing post numbers

@ Leightman 957 (post has already disappeared), juice (5th Jan 2015, 22:23), AerocatS2A (5th Jan 2015, 22:34)

Referring to post numbers in any fast-paced thread on PPRuNe is quite useless, indeed.

That appears to be the reason for the "permalink" thoughtfully provided by PPRuNe right after the post number. And hardly ever used. Still, that’s what a permanent link is for.

Or else, and even nicer, indeed refer to the user name (forum nickname) of the referenced poster as well as postdate and time. Then we have a fix that will not drift.

Or quote, yes. Give the reader a clue!

Note that here we’re often discussing flight deck ergonomics in a not very reader-friendly way here.

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And I hasten to thank p.j.m for already taking up the idea (right at midnight).
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Old 6th Jan 2015, 00:16
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Sonar

@p.j.m.
Thanks, noticed that image in a previous post a few days ago. Poor image for current technology. With the many assets (navy and survey ships) on site, much more detailed and sharper images should be available.
During an interview on tv, this morning, an officer on a US navy vessel in the Java Sea said that their equipment was capable to spot a target the size of a tennis ball on the seafloor.....
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Old 6th Jan 2015, 00:34
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Originally Posted by Ber Nooly
After reading University's great post I'm now beginning to wonder if fly-by-wire was such a good idea afterall...
Given the safety standard of the A320, definitely.
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Old 6th Jan 2015, 00:36
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Seems to me (after having a few thousand hrs in the Bus) that this airplane was made for third world countries. It was made so educated, extremely low time guys could fly it. The problem is the automation & protections have gone way overboard and seem to have caused more trouble than its worth.

Do we as professional aviators really need ALPHA Prot?, ALPA Floor? TOGA Lock, Alpha Lock, etc..... Do we need to be told when to "retard" the thrust on landing? If you cant figure out that you need to add some thrust or you're going to fall out of the sky, or when you need to pull the power back on landing, you have no place in a C-152, let alone a transport category airplane.........
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Old 6th Jan 2015, 00:53
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Seems to me (after having a few thousand hrs in the Bus) that this airplane was made for third world countries. It was made so educated, extremely low time guys could fly it. The problem is the automation & protections have gone way overboard and seem to have caused more trouble than its worth.


The statistics would not support you.
The Airbus aircraft have casualty levels no worse than their Boeing contemporaries, so whatever their deficiencies, they are not 'more trouble than its worth'.
Imho, the abrupt loss of communications from a routine flight surrounded by other routine flights argues against the routine accident causes such as icing.
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Old 6th Jan 2015, 01:12
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A more recent article (Oct 2013) by same WSJ author but involving engine icing on new 747.

Icing Hazards Surface on Boeing's Newest 747 Jet - WSJ
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Old 6th Jan 2015, 01:27
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Originally Posted by JoeyBalls
Seems to me (after having a few thousand hrs in the Bus) that this airplane was made for third world countries. It was made so educated, extremely low time guys could fly it. The problem is the automation & protections have gone way overboard and seem to have caused more trouble than its worth.
Have caused more problems than its worth? Well, the statistics seem to point otherwise. A quick look on AVHerald you can check how automation has saved the day numerous times.

Originally Posted by JoeyBalls
Do we as professional aviators really need ALPHA Prot?, ALPA Floor? TOGA Lock, Alpha Lock, etc..... Do we need to be told when to "retard" the thrust on landing? If you cant figure out that you need to add some thrust or you're going to fall out of the sky, or when you need to pull the power back on landing, you have no place in a C-152, let alone a transport category airplane.........
If history proves us something, is that professional aviators need those protections and many more.

By the way, what's your problem with Airbus automation anyway? I don't get it. People here are always expecting an Airbus accident, and when it happens everyone blames the plane first.
Its safety standard is above Boeing 737. The 737 even had a rudder design flaw which caused some crashes.

The only explanation for this is that pilots consciously or unconsciously hate the Airbus because of the automation and they don't have the full control of the airplane... Ironic when it's more than proved that the majority of the accident are caused by human error.

Regards.

Last edited by Standard Toaster; 6th Jan 2015 at 01:59.
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Old 6th Jan 2015, 01:45
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I'm wondering whether this issue about not Air Asia not having a permit to fly the Surabaya - Singapore route on a Sunday is just a distraction by the government to point the finger at Air Asia for any blame. I've flown on QZ8501 before on a Sunday in August of this year and here is my booking itinerary to prove it (with my identity removed, of course.)



If Air Asia have been scheduling this flight on a Sunday from 3 months ago then why all of a sudden, their 'permit' to fly on that day has been revoked? It's interesting that Air Asia has been silent on this issue since it was brought up by the minister for transport. In Indonesia, you do not dare challenge the government if you still wish to continue to operate in the future.

As you can see, this flight has always been scheduled to depart at 0520 in the morning. I don't fly for Air Asia, but I did fly for an Indonesian airline based in Surabaya up until mid 2014 and I know for a fact that Surabaya airport does not officially open until 0600.

You can check this yourself by going to the Indoavis website and typing in the airport code for Surabaya WARR. The Tower, ATIS and Ground does not officially open until 2300 UTC. I've mentioned before on this thread that I've had early morning departures from Surabaya (0600 LT) with a reporting time of 0500 and getting weather data directly from the briefing office that early in the morning was not always possible. Our flight operations officers usually download the weather info online from the BMKG website which was legal. This is the way that many airlines operate in Indonesia and when on turn-arounds, those dispatcher briefings are always done in the aircraft before departure. So what the minister is suggesting here in this article is nothing new, but just typical of knee jerk actions to make it appear to the public that the government is busy doing something useful.

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