More photos of possible debris:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6FP_aiIUAAW-0j.jpg

More pictures from Twitter:

(unconfirmed debris)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6FQebMCEAEO2pn.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6FQeOyCEAAYGNB.jpg

Columbia's Recorder
 

The shuttle Columbia's commercial PC equivalent data recorder (not a crash recorder) survived the g's, heat, etc of a high Mach breakup of the shuttle and then the fall from 100000+ feet into a field in Texas as basically a stand alone box (no absorbing surrounding structure). All data was retrieved.

10 to 20 km east of the last known position.
With the easterly sea current, this is right where we would expect it to be.


http://www.straitstimes.com/sites/st...air301214e.jpg
AirAsia flight QZ8501: Items resembling emergency slide, plane door seen in search - South-east Asia News & Top Stories - The Straits Times

The picture posted of retangular red-white object:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/org.barkah..../Misc/door.jpg

it's not a door. It's looks rather like a wingtip (red with a narrow white strip). The only thing painted in such pattern on that plane.

http://www.aero-news.net/images/cont...ring-1212a.JPG

But I'm not sure the aircraft in question had this type of wingtips ?

I don't mean to criticize but why didn't they look in that area from the beginning?! Debris are spotted 10 km from away from the last known positions!!!

or low clouds/rough seas may have obscured it.

Correction to last comment, leading edge slat or leading edge tail? Just a thought.

^^^ looks to me like the aircraft is submerged and the lighter stuff is now starting to surface like life jackets, raft pieces and lighter panels and composite parts. The long thin object does look like driftwood but not mistaking that the other photos do look very much like liferafts, jackets etc. Heres hoping this is a breakthrough.

Yes, it easy to criticize from behind a keyboard. The weather has been poor, with constant cloud, rain and wind - and thunderstorms. Not exactly conducive to aerial search.
Even the local fisherman have stated that they have been reluctant to go to sea in the area because of poor weather conditions.

In addition - anyone who knows anything about Indonesian waters knows exactly just how much debris in the form of countless types of flotsam and jetsam, exists in these waters. Some of it, quite large items.
We will have to wait until we have 100% positive indication of aircraft components in the floating debris.

@skytrax

It's hard to spot small things floating in a sea of whitecaps in a gale, from an airplane two or three thousand (maybe 10 thousand) feet in the air.

Debris confirmed to be from aircraft..(by traffic ministry)
waiting for BASARNAS

MrDK

I agree with you, in fact I've got the necessary data from that message down to 35 bytes (the commas are not transmitted if the fields are fixed.) It can be compacted a bit further by using binary notation instead of ASCII characters.

9V-SRN,370,0,475,161,-2.6921,105.9659,2233

The receiving end can have a lookup table to fill in whatever flight number 9V-SRN is on, what kind of plane it is and who the Crew are.

This won't take much bamdwidth. That's why Inmarsat will do it for free.

Russia Today reporting a body has been found near the possible debris field.

Obviously, it's Russia Today, so please treat with caution.

EDIT: Multiple reports of bodies seen near debris but still not confirmed.

Director General of Civil Aviation has confirmed that debris were from a plane.

However, it has not been fully confirmed at this time that the debris is indeed from QZ8501.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/airplane...say-1419922721

Press Conference just confirmed sighting of exit door and life jacket.

Indonesian Air Force spokesman reports sighting of "what looks like a silhouette... of the fuselage".

May this be the first step to bring closure to the affected families.

Exoixx, would be helpful if you indicate your source, so others have a chance to look and consider the verity for themselves. Otherwise you are just firing off yet more rumor.

Sad pictures on Indonesian TV :eek:
Mivo - Live to share

Per the BBC, Indonesian TV has shown footage of an SAR guy being winched down to recover a body.

AirAsia QZ8501 searchers spot 'debris' in the sea - BBC News

Apologies.

Now being reported here: https://twitter.com/STcom/status/549838632215777280

(warning: Photo of body).

Atleast 3 bodies have been sighted. One has been recovered to the helicopter. Helicopter has returned to Pangkalan Bun.
EDIT: 3 bodies confirmed recovered

Racist and patently ill-informed comment from Australian 'expert' reported on New Straits Times

""Neil Hansford said that either the Indonesian captain or French first officer had plotted a “dangerous flight plan"

“Whether they read the meteorology right they were given in Surubaya...And how well did they communicate? One whose basic language is Bahasa and the other guy’s basic language is French.”


QZ8501: Flight plan of missing plane dangerous | New Straits Times

Don't the practical realities of SAR add to the need for more data to be available? How difficult would it be to have a SATCOM system which was armed climbing through 20k and which automatically burped out position data on descending through 2k then every x seconds until goodbye and closing the channel at 200ft say? You could regain some weight and cost by junking the ELTs which appear to be occupying space normally reserved for chocolate teapots!

Practical reality is you can find aircraft most the time in normal conditions when the weather permits you to look. This one seems to be about where it should have been.


These aircraft have ELTs yes but need to be alive to activate them - if there were survivors after impact then we would know exact position to go to. And in bad weather attempts would be made, not necessarily successful ones.


Bottom line is it seems to be found and with little risk by SAR knowing that NO ELT was activated and therefore as stated early more a search than a rescue in this case.

Racist? :confused:

Maybe ill informed, maybe not.

He may well be right that as in other recent crashes, there was no fault with the aircraft.

I would suggest that language differences are a significant human factors issue in flight deck communications. Just as in journalism, where the original Neil Hansford sound bites may have been summarized by a native Chinese speaker and perhaps retranslated back into English for release by the Xinhua news agency.

We all debate causes and preventative measures.
And then you look at a few photos of those poor relatives.
Awful.

Well Neil Hansford must have a fairly high opinion of himself to lay the blame squarely at the feet of the pilots considering the following is a summary of his "experience" from Lonkedin.

With the AF447 crash and now this I think all pilots should undertake a high altitude stall awareness and recovery training,with particular emphasise on Airbus aircraft.

I don't suppose the industry adopts a 'no ELT so no rush' approach. As they are carried may as well maximise there utility even post- mortem. Why not have a built in station which can be operated by strapped in CC with SOP to activate on a depressurization event or an emergency?

No doubt we may learn from the data recorders and the subsequent investigation what happened, if the air accident investigation does its job properly.

But two items from the analysis on PPRuNe are significant, and could be addressed without waiting for the report.

First, have all pilots been properly advised and trained to deal with the inappropriate behavior of the Airbus computers that can lead to upset, mentioned on several threads here...
And secondly, also mentioned by several posters, unserviceable or inoperative cockpit weather radar seems to be tolerated by the industry.

Watched Neil Hansford being interviewed on this mornings breakfast TV and had an overwhelming desire to throw something at my TV. Pompous and arrogant were two of a variety of words I think my wife heard me shout at the TV.

Where on Earth do they get these muppets?

No, it isn't but the Captain is allowed to exercise the provisions of the MEL.

@airbubba

O.K. Dropping the Chinese path:

"Strategic Aviation Solutions chairman Neil Hansford told Channel 9's Today most flights went around the area and somebody 'dropped the ball' when they made the flight plan for QZ8501. "

Considering the number of aircraft in that route leg near that time the comment is ridiculous.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...y-weather.html

I bet the trimmable THS will be found at max NU, again. That's not pilot error.

Hi mary;

Unserviceable radar is an MEL item to provide dispatchability for the aircraft when it is judged by the captain that it is not required on the route to be flown.

It isn't that the industry "tolerates" it - it leaves the final decision to go or not with the captain, where, of course, it belongs.

It is quite safe to fly without radar providing departure, enroute and arrival weather conditions do not require the use of on-board radar.

If conditions require it I would expect the captain to refuse the flight until it's either working or the aircraft is replaced.

Any seen a picture of this shadow or silhouette of the aircraft, if that's the case is the plane intact ??

That certainly has not been my experience. I think I've perhaps flown twice in 20 years with the radar MEL'ed. I fly mostly widebody long haul so that may be a factor.

At any rate, I doubt you could MEL a radar on an overwater route near the equator.

Agreed, and the stuff about looking at the weather on the ground. I glance at it out of SIN but know the reality is WYSIWYG. No matter what the paperwork says be ready for some action in that area. And, sometimes all is quiet.

And, you can see how the retranslation changes the tone of the 'expert's' analysis. He may be a buffoon but there are enough opinions out there that someone will be right. As a pilot, I sincerely hope that the crew did not cause the mishap and did everything right in a losing effort. But I know from many past events that will not always be the case.

I commented earlier on a post that was somehow deleted about how most of these 'consultants' in the U.S. are folks who can't hold a flying job for various reasons like medical, retirement, airline shutdown or getting fired at their flying job. I won't give examples this time. :)

It seems that everything happened very quickly.
If intact=no broken bones then maybe some of them survived the crash or if intact=1 piece but broken bones then maybe the plane broke in air

@phoenix
 

If a/c was at FL360 and stalled it will be app 4 to 5 min before it will hit the water,...


Unless given command by cpt/crew to prepare for impact or ditching pax will never take life jackets on their own initiative


If a/c broke in the air you will witness parts of a/c in much wider area also