Air Asia Indonesia Lost Contact from Surabaya to Singapore
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January 28th date set to release preliminary report
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Apparently, the radome of PK-AXC has been found washed up near Sembilan Island 550 KM away from the rest of the wreckage.
Source: Detik.com
Approximate location of where the radome was found.
Source: Detik.com
Approximate location of where the radome was found.
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In the extreme people can hear a voice but not actually discriminate the sounds into meaningful words. This is common in the deaf/hard of hearing and audiologists will carry out speech discrimination tests. This is usually done by playing voices of different people at different sound levels with or without background noise. They may talk in snippets or single words so there is no contextual clue to what the word is, or give a sentence that provides some contextual clues to what is being said.
The count the bleeps type hearing test is just for that hearing it does not identify people who cannot understand voices or sounds well against background noise.
I am surprised that this is not tested for. The person suffering a loss of speech or sound discrimination may not be aware of it, but will find talking/listening in noisy surroundings difficult and tiring.
This is totally different to the 'attentional' or 'cognitive' tunneling effect, where under pressure humans will focus on one particular part of their environment and exclude all others. If that is the wrong thing then that will lead to problems in a cockpit environment.
Sounds are one of the first stimuli to be filtered out, the last to be filtered out are haptics (touch and feeling) hence the reason for stick shakers.
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@ Ian W - on transcripting
IAN W -- having had the misfortune to have done some transcripts of fatal air
accidents, i can assure you that it takes longer than you would think and is
more draining than you would think
accidents, i can assure you that it takes longer than you would think and is
more draining than you would think
- especially when you know the people involved.
add in chaotic ecam and cavalry charges and alarms etc etc and i am surprised
that they have done as much as they have.
that they have done as much as they have.
all the time you are aware that someone will challenge your transcripts so you
go over and over. Each alarm has to be identified, each sound identified. Not a
pleasant task at all.
go over and over. Each alarm has to be identified, each sound identified. Not a
pleasant task at all.
Note:
Once i took a number of tapes, listened to them, made a transcript, and compared that with what was published in appendices of the final reports. The easy part was that the report left out the private and human side ... In spite of that, you could feel the strain. The hard part was making a good transcript, my impression based on that is, that i would never leave it to a single person to make a transcription. And for more reasons than one, including sharing the tremendous emotional stress.
In the past you could find pretty complete tapes and texts. Today it appears that less and less is published. I wonder if that is wise. If you really want to understand an accident, then ... The negative side is of course people using the information with an uninformed or wrong intent.
There is no hail damage on that radome. It's in remarkably good condition. In fact it does not even show the type of erosion you normally see when a aircraft is flown through extreme rain.
So far there have been a lot of good suggestions re training for high altitude turbulence, stalling, and even spin recovery. However, as many have pointed out, the first priority is to avoid the extreme weather. There is a long history of jet fighters being lost in large CBs because they lacked any weather radar and yet they were stressed well above airliners' G limits and had much higher control response.
We can't properly simulate really severe turbulence, so the training - as for ditching - has to be rather arbitrary. There is a lot more we can do in regard to weather avoidance at reasonable cost/risk benefit by integrating weather data sources and I hope at least that this tragedy will spur greater efforts in that direction.
It has also become obvious that current automatics in extreme turbulence and icing may not cope adequately and that pilots are easily overstressed by violent movement and temporary or spurious warnings. Hopefully, this accident will provoke better algorithms in preference to relying more on manual takeovers. It's very hard in severe turbulence, blinded by lightning, to take over efficiently with your head and arms flailing around.
Having said that, each pilot must still know the limitations of their auto systems and be prepared for manual takeover. I'll bet on the technology in the long run. Self driving cars have, to my knowledge, not had an accident yet and had completed over 3 million miles last time I checked.
We can't properly simulate really severe turbulence, so the training - as for ditching - has to be rather arbitrary. There is a lot more we can do in regard to weather avoidance at reasonable cost/risk benefit by integrating weather data sources and I hope at least that this tragedy will spur greater efforts in that direction.
It has also become obvious that current automatics in extreme turbulence and icing may not cope adequately and that pilots are easily overstressed by violent movement and temporary or spurious warnings. Hopefully, this accident will provoke better algorithms in preference to relying more on manual takeovers. It's very hard in severe turbulence, blinded by lightning, to take over efficiently with your head and arms flailing around.
Having said that, each pilot must still know the limitations of their auto systems and be prepared for manual takeover. I'll bet on the technology in the long run. Self driving cars have, to my knowledge, not had an accident yet and had completed over 3 million miles last time I checked.
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@ Ian W On sound and sound processing - under stress
Ian W --
The name given is low levels of discrimination. The ability to make out a particular sound or voice in amongst other sounds, or even just the ability to understand speech. In the extreme people can hear a voice but not actually discriminate the sounds into meaningful words. This is common in the deaf/hard of hearing and audiologists will carry out speech discrimination tests. This is usually done by playing voices of different people at different sound levels with or without background noise. They may talk in snippets or single words so there is no contextual clue to what the word is, or give a sentence that provides some contextual clues to what is being said. The count the bleeps type hearing test is just for that hearing it does not identify people who cannot hear voices or sounds well against background noise. I am surprised that this is not tested for. The person suffering a loss of speech or sound discrimination may not be aware of it, but will find talking/listening in noisy surroundings difficult and tiring.
This is totally different to the 'attentional' or 'cognitive' tunneling effect, where under pressure humans will focus on one particular part of their environment and exclude all others. If that is the wrong thing then that will lead to problems in a cockpit environment. Sounds are one of the first stimuli to be filtered out, the last to be filtered out are haptics (touch and feeling) hence the reason for stick shakers.
The name given is low levels of discrimination. The ability to make out a particular sound or voice in amongst other sounds, or even just the ability to understand speech. In the extreme people can hear a voice but not actually discriminate the sounds into meaningful words. This is common in the deaf/hard of hearing and audiologists will carry out speech discrimination tests. This is usually done by playing voices of different people at different sound levels with or without background noise. They may talk in snippets or single words so there is no contextual clue to what the word is, or give a sentence that provides some contextual clues to what is being said. The count the bleeps type hearing test is just for that hearing it does not identify people who cannot hear voices or sounds well against background noise. I am surprised that this is not tested for. The person suffering a loss of speech or sound discrimination may not be aware of it, but will find talking/listening in noisy surroundings difficult and tiring.
This is totally different to the 'attentional' or 'cognitive' tunneling effect, where under pressure humans will focus on one particular part of their environment and exclude all others. If that is the wrong thing then that will lead to problems in a cockpit environment. Sounds are one of the first stimuli to be filtered out, the last to be filtered out are haptics (touch and feeling) hence the reason for stick shakers.
When you go from relaxed to stressful situations, and end up at the most extreme stress levels on human beings - then you go through something that I call "roll back" (using my own words - I am sorry, but I do not know if there is a scientific label for the whole 'movement'). Which means that the brain's main processing moves from the frontal lobe, to the 'centre of the brain', and finally down to the 'brain stem'. One of the effects is for instance that you cannot lift as much weight in an extremely stressful environment as in a relaxed one. The reduction can be up to 50%. I do not know any numbers for the degradation of pull strength ( ref old fashioned sticks).
Last edited by A0283; 20th Jan 2015 at 12:07.
Under severe stress according to my psychiatric contacts you 'regress' towards primitive fight or flight (escape) mode. Both are problematic in high technology situations, which are not quite our evolutionary scenarios. One sub mode of 'flight' is to go catatonic or 'play possum'. I know of one incident where an inexperienced F/O got overwhelmed going into LHR and went to sleep and could not be woken until after landing.
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On the topic of stress, there is an interesting Dutch investigation into military personnel. I believe though that the report might be of interest for anyone working in a high stress environment.
http://tinyurl.com/m9kwpga
Short summary of the above PDF: The "scientifical" words for what others call easy things like "roll-back" (I like that expression) is perceptual narrowing and indeed it messes up your perception. One of the first senses to be disregarded is hearing unless it is short, distinctive and preferrably in your mother tongue. Motor skills deteriorate because smaller muscles aren't provided with enough oxygen due to the fight-or-flight state that adrenaline dictates where it is most useful to have a good flow in your large muscles to be able to do either. Loss of near vision is also among the things that hampers your performance.
EDIT: Another one, more directly related to stress in aviation:
http://tinyurl.com/pflgb95
If the radome found belongs to the missing plane, it looks very clean and I see no visible hail marks or scorching as by lightning.
http://tinyurl.com/m9kwpga
Short summary of the above PDF: The "scientifical" words for what others call easy things like "roll-back" (I like that expression) is perceptual narrowing and indeed it messes up your perception. One of the first senses to be disregarded is hearing unless it is short, distinctive and preferrably in your mother tongue. Motor skills deteriorate because smaller muscles aren't provided with enough oxygen due to the fight-or-flight state that adrenaline dictates where it is most useful to have a good flow in your large muscles to be able to do either. Loss of near vision is also among the things that hampers your performance.
EDIT: Another one, more directly related to stress in aviation:
http://tinyurl.com/pflgb95
If the radome found belongs to the missing plane, it looks very clean and I see no visible hail marks or scorching as by lightning.
Last edited by MrSnuggles; 20th Jan 2015 at 13:09. Reason: Found another pdf. Edit again for summary.
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There is no hail damage on that radome. It's in remarkably good condition. In fact it does not even show the type of erosion you normally see when a aircraft is flown through extreme rain.
Yes it could have drifted that distance and also no radome was reported lost when they requested climb only minutes before the crash position. It's possible also that it was detached in the uncontrolled descent if spinning, for example, with lateral airloads.
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6000 fpm climb and subsequent stall reported BBC News - AirAsia flight QZ8501 'climbed too fast'
Indonesia's transport minister has said AirAsia flight QZ8501 climbed too fast just before it stalled, crashing into the sea with the loss of 162 lives. Ignasius Jonan told a parliamentary hearing in Jakarta the jet had climbed at a speed of 6,000 ft (1,828 m).
"It is unlikely a fighter jet would increase its flight level at a speed of 6,000 ft per minute," he said.
There were no survivors when the jet crashed in the Java sea on 28 December, en route from Surabaya to Singapore.
The Airbus A320-200 is thought to have encountered difficulties from an approaching storm.
Bodies are still being retrieved from the crash area where debris was scattered across the sea.
The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were found last week.
The fuselage of the plane, believed to hold most of the bodies, has also been located and search teams are now working out how to retrieve it.
The authorities are expected to issue a preliminary report on the crash on 28 January.
"It is unlikely a fighter jet would increase its flight level at a speed of 6,000 ft per minute," he said.
There were no survivors when the jet crashed in the Java sea on 28 December, en route from Surabaya to Singapore.
The Airbus A320-200 is thought to have encountered difficulties from an approaching storm.
Bodies are still being retrieved from the crash area where debris was scattered across the sea.
The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were found last week.
The fuselage of the plane, believed to hold most of the bodies, has also been located and search teams are now working out how to retrieve it.
The authorities are expected to issue a preliminary report on the crash on 28 January.
It's not a controlled rate of climb. 6000'/min is impossible at that altitude and type. It's a pitchup zoom climb possibly aided by updraft with reducing IAS into a stall; then we are guessing.
It was the Indonesian transport minister not a journalist that claimed that it climbed "too fast", so the assumption is that the "old radar data" has been confirmed somewhat by data already gleaned from the recorders. It's also stated that it stalled which they would probably know by now. Also updrafts do not necessarily bleed airspeed but zoom (speed for height) climbs always do. The pitchup into a stall scenario during the climb to FL 340 now seems most likely for whatever reason.
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"Audio saturated Environment"
"Audio saturated environment" is a very appropriate expression for the cascade warning sounds bombarding the pilots during an abnormal occurance on a modern airliner. Add it to the lexicon!
Of course 6000'/min is possible for an updraft, but gliders do not stall when they enter thermals. They gain total energy, The ROC mentioned is adequately explained by trading speed for height. There equally could have been a slight downdraft.