AirAsia flight missing

[Gabriel]

Ok, good. So severe updrafts are not likely to be the lone cause of a catastrophic loss of control.

It looks like the consensus here is that weather alone is very unlikely to have caused the loss of this AirAsia 8501.

Well, one thing that a sudden updraft alone can do, if it's strong enough and you are flying fast enough, is cause a structural failure.

Another thing is that very strong updraft are hardly isolated flows of smooth laminar wind blowing up. Rather, they are embedded in a severe storm cell with a quite strong and chaotic turbulence that can help in the loss of control process.

What I'm saying is that "updraft = stall = we unavoidably fall several miles all the way to the ocean" is an oversimplification to say the least.

[Jpmkam]

Cockpit voice recorder recovered. Now having recovered both black boxes this should greatly aid their accident analysis.

THE cockpit voice recorder from the downed AirAsia Flight QZ8501 has been recovered from the bottom of the Java Sea, Indonesian officials say.
Divers located the crucial second black box yesterday, just hours after retrieving the other black box - the flight recorder - from the ocean floor.

Today, they have pulled the voice recorder from its sunken resting place among the lagan. Investigators hope it will reveal the final words of the crew and help them determine what went wrong on board the doomed flight.
Earlier, investigators said they believe the AirAsia plane “experienced an explosion” before hitting the water, due to a significant change in air pressure.

“My analysis is, based on the wreckage found and other findings, the plane experienced an explosion before it hit the water,” Suryadi Bambang Supriyadi, operations coordinator at the National Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters.

[Gabriel]

Cockpit voice recorder recovered. Now having recovered both black boxes this should greatly aid their accident analysis.

Sure.

In one week the investigators should have a quite clear picture of what happened. Perhaps in one month we'll have an interim factual report.

The "why" will take another year.

(Just describing a typical investigation, of which I think this will be one).

[Evan]

Sure.

In one week the investigators should have a quite clear picture of what happened.

Hopefully. We don't know yet how sudden it was and when the recorders departed the plane.

And hopefully the Indonesian authorities will not interfere with the release of preliminary information like they always do.

[sjwk]

The fuselage found also:

SB Supriadi from Indonesia's search and rescue agency told the BBC's Indonesian service the fuselage had been located by divers about 1.5km (0.9 miles) from where the tail section was found last week.

He said there were no plans yet to go down and retrieve it.

The voice recorder was freed from underneath heavy wreckage of a wing from a depth of about 30 metres (98 feet) early on Tuesday, said Tonny Budiono, sea navigation director at the Transportation Ministry.

[Gabriel]

Hopefully. We don't know yet how sudden it was and when the recorders departed the plane.

If both flight recorders stopped recording at the same time at altitude, and the last data of the FDR is a too high acceleration or speed, you pretty much know what happened (and should be relatively easy to confirm from the wreckage) and whatever was not recorded after that point will not be very important.

[Jpmkam]

Searchers saw the plane's main body, with one of its wings attached, via a camera carried by a remotely operated underwater vehicle, Indonesia search chief Bambang Soelistyo said Wednesday.

Key in identifying the debris are the words painted on the section. Pictures released by the search agency appear to show portions of the words "now" and "everyone."

AirAsia says the slogan "Now everyone can fly" had been on the length of the plane, which crashed December 28 as it flew toward Singapore from the Indonesian city of Surabaya.

Divers will search the fuselage for bodies Thursday, and if the divers encounter trouble, crews may lift the fuselage out of the water, Soelistyo said.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/14/world/airasia-disaster/index.html

[3WE]

Hopefully. We don't know yet how sudden it was and when the recorders departed the plane.

Unfortunately there's a real risk of the FDR showing everything nice and normal and then stopping extremely suddenly and you get very little data...hopefully there will be meaningful information.

[Evan]

Unfortunately there's a real risk of the FDR showing everything nice and normal and then stopping extremely suddenly and you get very little data...hopefully there will be meaningful information.

And the CVR ending with F/O: Um...

[Gabriel]

On Jan 15th 2015 Indonesia's Ministry of Transport announced, that both flight data and cockpit voice recorder have been downloaded successfully by Indonesia's NTSC. The CVR is currently being transcribed, the flight data recorder analysis is in progress and expected to take some time.

http://avherald.com/h?article=47f6abc7&opt=0

[Jpmkam]

Fuselage to be raised - cockpit found.

An Indonesian search official said Friday that the crashed AirAsia jet's fuselage will be lifted to the surface after sea conditions again prevented divers from examining the large chunk of wreckage.

National Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said that rescue teams discovered more wreckage despite the strong current and poor visibility.

"Apart from the fuselage, we found what we suspected as the aircraft's cockpit and also an engine," he said. "We also found what seems to be a passenger seat in which we thought there still bodies tied on it."

He did not specify whether or not the seat was inside the fuselage section that sits on the seabed at a depth of 28 meters (92 feet). The 30-meter-long (100-foot-long) part of the plane body with a wing attached was sighted Wednesday.

Rescuers believe that many of the bodies are still inside the main fuselage.

Soelistyo said the failure of the underwater examination of the wreckage left no option but to lift the fuselage, either by using floating balloons as the tail part was lifted early this week, or using cranes from tugboats. He did not say when the operation would start.

Earlier Friday, chief of operation of the agency, Suryadi Bambang Supriyadi said the wreckage that appears to be the cockpit was located by sonar imagery about 500 meters (yards) from the fuselage and partly embedded in the mud.

[Evan]

An Indonesian NTSC investigator made this statement today:

The recording appeared to indicate that the pilot was too busy attempting to regain control of the aircraft to send a distress signal, he said.

So, it appears to be an upset situation and a struggle to recover.

Sound familiar...?

The preliminary report will be released on January 28.

[TeeVee]

at which time some of our resident experts with zero stick time will rant on about how the pilots were inept, poorly trained, and should never have been behind the (or this case, next to) the stick to begin with. and how simple it would have been to recover the aircraft had the pilots only done xyz...

all from safety and security of their cozy houses...

[Gabriel]

at which time some of our resident experts with zero stick time will rant on about how the pilots were inept, poorly trained, and should never have been behind the (or this case, next to) the stick to begin with. and how simple it would have been to recover the aircraft had the pilots only done xyz...

all from safety and security of their cozy houses...

As soon as we have evidence that this was a case similar to AF, Colgan or Pinnacle, I will.

[TeeVee]

grist for the mill...

http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-east-asia/story/airasia-flight-qz8501-crash-highlights-perils-south-east-asias-crowd