AirAsia flight QZ8501 from Indonesia to Singapore missing

[balo]

OK lets wait for Day 3 , but this is taking too long.

[F430murci]

Not to debate whose best, but come on! That plane did not crash due to pilot error. That plane sustained a tail strike earlier and had an improper repair causing tail to tear away during flight. All hydraulic fluid drained out and pilots had no control over any control surfaces. If anything, pilots did a decent job keeping that mess in the air as long as they did. That was also 37 years ago.

Correct. As I recall, after the plane had sustained a tail strike, Boeing sent over engineers to fix the damage.

The repair was not done properly, and the tail cone blew off in flight. So had nothing to do with the airline

itself.

Not just the tail cone, but also took out the vertical stabilizer.

Yes. What a horrifying 32 minutes for the passengers....

This photograph shows the plane as it looked after explosive decompression. The vertical stabilizer is missing (circled in red).

Unbelievably horrifying. Rapid decompression, plane oscillating up and down and etc. Pilots made a valiant effort to control the plane with thrust similar to that of Flight 232, but this poor guy was in the mountains . . . One should not criticize these pilots.

[NeverSure]

Seeing still no debris found. If they lose this one, one needs to start questioning both the competency of SE Asia pilots and SE ATC.

US commercial pilots I know, including family members, say that the training of SE Asian pilots is not up to snuff and incidents like Flight 214 resulted from chronically, poorly trained pilots that cannot fly with auto pilot disengaged. MH17 flee over a war zone, 8501 may have flown directly into a violent storm . . . and ATC seems to have the same low level of competency as well.

Is this bad equipment or operator issues? Didn't they have similar problems finding that Adam Air flight is same general area a few years back. Did that SE market grow faster than money, equipment and training could keep up?

.

Couldn't agree more. I have decided never to fly with SE Asian pilots again. Japanese, yes. SE Asian, no. Nor Chinese, nor Korean. Face was actually officially found as one reason for the crash of that plane this year at SFO, Korean pilot at the stick.

And ATC's waiting 50 minutes after lost contact to start the process of reporting a civilian airliner missing is gross incompetence.

I have a PLB I take when hiking and rock climbing. It cost $500 and is GPS enabled. If I flick the switch, in less than five minutes COSPAS_SARSAT satellites pinpoint my location and notify SAR. Thousands of people have been rescued because they carried a PLB.

A top of the line EPIRB (marine) or ELT (aviation) cost $1500.

All three are almost indestructible. Now two SE Asian airlines have disappeared without a single signal being broadcast. Why?

I will begin carrying my PLB with me when I fly any airline, anywhere.

Have to agree with you. A friend of mine used to do 747 training for Korean Air Line pilots . He told me if I knew

what happens in the cockpit, I would never ever set foot in a KAL plane. Not sure about training for AirAsia pilots.

I may be biased, but I personally love the sound of a British accent coming over the intercom from the pilot....

AF 447 showed the abysmal level of skill for current pilots in the face of an unusual problem, as the French pilots were unable to control the plane when the autopilot shut off. Pilot training needs to get back to the basics of being able

to control the plane in unusual attitudes, rather than how to turn on the autopilot in the air and the auto throttle on landing.

"Unusual Attitudes"...A good friend of mine was a P-3C pilot back in the 70's. During his inflight training

one of the scenarios was "unusual attitudes"...whereas the aircraft was put into some attitude not

considered "normal". Read into that whatever you want but the observers that any P-3 carries would

detest these training manouvers...flat spins, pitches, rolls, steep banks, dives etc...etc. With a very

experienced pilot aboard (check pilot) the trainee pilot would do his damndest to recover the aircraft

to straight & level flight. Needless to say a huge chunk of airspace would be blocked off to facilitate

these manouvers over water and from what me old friend said...never was a P-3 lost during these

training manouvers. That said...civilian pilots will most probably never have the experience as military

pilots get for this type of training...one can always walk away from a simulator can't they. And not

all ex-military pilots who have become civilian pilots have ever done the unusual attitude flights...

except perhaps, in a simulator

Just FWIW.

I don't know about other countries, but in the US you won't even get your first private pilot's license until you demonstrate proficiency in recovering from a stall. In a real airplane. In the air. In a real stall. Over and over until it's automatic. It's part of your flight exam too for the license. You have to show how to enter the stall to prove you know what can cause one, and then you have to recover in such a time and manner as to convince the examiner.

I wish that these ATP's had to have at least 500 hours in a general aviation plane doing short field landings and takeoffs, steep side and forward slips to a real landing, real simulated engine out landings where the power is pulled clear back by the instructor while in reach of the runway but 5,000 feet above it, and just generally wringing it out to find out what makes a plane fly in good and bad circumstances.

[khaosai]

Hi,

Light aircraft provide a good training platform for stall indentification and recovery but the environment that large commercial aircraft operate in is very different.

There has been a shift in emphasis from minimising height loss to now performing a positive recovery by reducing the angle of attack to below the wing stalling angle. The recovery is still achieved with smooth control inputs but the pitch change required at high altitude can be quite significant.

As an aside I have heard that an aircraft that was in the region at around the same time was almost 100 miles off track to the west due to the significant weather in the area.

[Tywais]

I don't know about other countries, but in the US you won't even get your first private pilot's license until you demonstrate proficiency in recovering from a stall. In a real airplane. In the air. In a real stall. Over and over until it's automatic. It's part of your flight exam too for the license. You have to show how to enter the stall to prove you know what can cause one, and then you have to recover in such a time and manner as to convince the examiner.

Indeed. When I was getting my license I had gone through countless number of stalls, both departure (full power) and approach to landing stalls (power off). You need the experience to be able to detect when you are in a configuration that is approaching that point as the most critical and likely points of stalling are taking off and landing.

Also, unusual attitudes were part of my training such as closing your eyes as the instructor takes control and puts the aircraft into a variety of maneuvers and gives you back the controls to recover. Also did it under 'the hood' that is simulated instrument conditions. You learn to trust the instruments and not your feeling. Also was required to practice spins. On my 2nd solo flight I went up and practiced departure (aka full power stalls). Something went wrong and found myself pointed straight to the ground and spinning. That was a change of underwear experience as I wasn't taught spins yet. Came back and landed still shaking and discussed it with my instructor and he explained secondary stalls.

[EyesWideOpen]

I don't know about other countries, but in the US you won't even get your first private pilot's license until you demonstrate proficiency in recovering from a stall. In a real airplane. In the air. In a real stall. Over and over until it's automatic. It's part of your flight exam too for the license. You have to show how to enter the stall to prove you know what can cause one, and then you have to recover in such a time and manner as to convince the examiner.

Indeed. When I was getting my license I had gone through countless number of stalls, both departure (full power) and approach to landing stalls (power off). You need the experience to be able to detect when you are in a configuration that is approaching that point as the most critical and likely points of stalling are taking off and landing.

Also, unusual attitudes were part of my training such as closing your eyes as the instructor takes control and puts the aircraft into a variety of maneuvers and gives you back the controls to recover. Also did it under 'the hood' that is simulated instrument conditions. You learn to trust the instruments and not your feeling. Also was required to practice spins. On my 2nd solo flight I went up and practiced departure (aka full power stalls). Something went wrong and found myself pointed straight to the ground and spinning. That was a change of underwear experience as I wasn't taught spins yet. Came back and landed still shaking and discussed it with my instructor and he explained secondary stalls.

When I was getting my license, in the first couple of hours of training time, the instructor looked over at me and said he was going to show me a spin. Which he then immediately did.........As we were spinning to the ground in what appeared to me to be complete loss of control, I remember asking him if he knew how to recover..... :-) He finally did..... So when I got my license, there was no training for spin recovery. Due to the large number of private pilots who have died due to entering a spin after perhaps a brief interlude into a cloud, I believe that it is now part of the training.

With so many pilots nowadays getting a significant part of their training in a simulator, am starting to think their real life response to unusual attitudes is not so good...AF 447 should have been a wake up call for the entire industry.

The facts of this situation are pretty slim at this point, but it sure looks like weather could be a factor. So lets say your plane is flying straight towards a thunderstorm. You then make a command decision to either fly over the top of it , or go to the sides of it. You then contact air traffic control to ask for a course change. Let say they refuse.......Do you continue to fly into the thunderstorm, or do you make a course change and blow off air traffic control??

[NeverSure]

I don't know about other countries, but in the US you won't even get your first private pilot's license until you demonstrate proficiency in recovering from a stall. In a real airplane. In the air. In a real stall. Over and over until it's automatic. It's part of your flight exam too for the license. You have to show how to enter the stall to prove you know what can cause one, and then you have to recover in such a time and manner as to convince the examiner.

Indeed. When I was getting my license I had gone through countless number of stalls, both departure (full power) and approach to landing stalls (power off). You need the experience to be able to detect when you are in a configuration that is approaching that point as the most critical and likely points of stalling are taking off and landing.

Also, unusual attitudes were part of my training such as closing your eyes as the instructor takes control and puts the aircraft into a variety of maneuvers and gives you back the controls to recover. Also did it under 'the hood' that is simulated instrument conditions. You learn to trust the instruments and not your feeling. Also was required to practice spins. On my 2nd solo flight I went up and practiced departure (aka full power stalls). Something went wrong and found myself pointed straight to the ground and spinning. That was a change of underwear experience as I wasn't taught spins yet. Came back and landed still shaking and discussed it with my instructor and he explained secondary stalls.

Ouch!! I don't know how you got out of the spin without training but glad to see you're here.

I'm serious. Pilots coming up short for landings and recognizing it too late, coming in too high and hot...

Being able see with your own two eyes that your glide slope is for a fact taking you to the end of the runway rather than short or long and that you're at the right speed in case instruments or autopilot is failing... It takes training, technique and practice and would apply to the big plane.

The small plane flies on exactly the same principles as the big plane and the recovery techniques are the same. The recognition in time to do something is the same excepting need more time for jet engines to spool up.

[khaosai]

I don't know about other countries, but in the US you won't even get your first private pilot's license until you demonstrate proficiency in recovering from a stall. In a real airplane. In the air. In a real stall. Over and over until it's automatic. It's part of your flight exam too for the license. You have to show how to enter the stall to prove you know what can cause one, and then you have to recover in such a time and manner as to convince the examiner.

Indeed. When I was getting my license I had gone through countless number of stalls, both departure (full power) and approach to landing stalls (power off). You need the experience to be able to detect when you are in a configuration that is approaching that point as the most critical and likely points of stalling are taking off and landing.

Also, unusual attitudes were part of my training such as closing your eyes as the instructor takes control and puts the aircraft into a variety of maneuvers and gives you back the controls to recover. Also did it under 'the hood' that is simulated instrument conditions. You learn to trust the instruments and not your feeling. Also was required to practice spins. On my 2nd solo flight I went up and practiced departure (aka full power stalls). Something went wrong and found myself pointed straight to the ground and spinning. That was a change of underwear experience as I wasn't taught spins yet. Came back and landed still shaking and discussed it with my instructor and he explained secondary stalls.

When I was getting my license, in the first couple of hours of training time, the instructor

looked over at me and said he was going to show me a spin. Which he then immediately

did.........As we were spinning to the ground in what appeared to me to be complete loss

of control, I remember asking him if he knew how to recover..... :-) He finally did.....

So when I got my license, there was no training for spin recovery. Due to the large number

of private pilots who have died due to entering a spin after perhaps a brief interlude into

a cloud, I believe that it is now part of the training.

With so many pilots nowadays getting a significant part of their training in a simulator,

am starting to think their real life response to unusual attitudes is not so good...AF 447

should have been a wake up call for the entire industry.

The facts of this situation are pretty slim at this point, but it sure looks like weather could

be a factor. So lets say your plane is flying straight towards a thunderstorm. You then make

a command decision to either fly over the top of it , or go to the sides of it. You then contact

air traffic control to ask for a course change. Let say they refuse.......Do you continue to

fly into the thunderstorm, or do you make a course change and blow off air traffic control??

You would never endanger the safety of the aircraft and it's occupants by flying into severe weather. Plan well ahead and communicate your request early to ATC. If unable then communicate your intentions to ATC or other traffic on frequencies 121.5/123.45

In certain part of the world there are specific contingency procedures published if you are unable to establish communication and a deviation is required be it for weather or technical reasons. These involve turns off track, deviating a certain distance and climbing or descending by a set amount.

[NeverSure]

I don't know about other countries, but in the US you won't even get your first private pilot's license until you demonstrate proficiency in recovering from a stall. In a real airplane. In the air. In a real stall. Over and over until it's automatic. It's part of your flight exam too for the license. You have to show how to enter the stall to prove you know what can cause one, and then you have to recover in such a time and manner as to convince the examiner.

Indeed. When I was getting my license I had gone through countless number of stalls, both departure (full power) and approach to landing stalls (power off). You need the experience to be able to detect when you are in a configuration that is approaching that point as the most critical and likely points of stalling are taking off and landing.

Also, unusual attitudes were part of my training such as closing your eyes as the instructor takes control and puts the aircraft into a variety of maneuvers and gives you back the controls to recover. Also did it under 'the hood' that is simulated instrument conditions. You learn to trust the instruments and not your feeling. Also was required to practice spins. On my 2nd solo flight I went up and practiced departure (aka full power stalls). Something went wrong and found myself pointed straight to the ground and spinning. That was a change of underwear experience as I wasn't taught spins yet. Came back and landed still shaking and discussed it with my instructor and he explained secondary stalls.

When I was getting my license, in the first couple of hours of training time, the instructor

looked over at me and said he was going to show me a spin. Which he then immediately

did.........As we were spinning to the ground in what appeared to me to be complete loss

of control, I remember asking him if he knew how to recover..... :-) He finally did.....

So when I got my license, there was no training for spin recovery. Due to the large number

of private pilots who have died due to entering a spin after perhaps a brief interlude into

a cloud, I believe that it is now part of the training.

With so many pilots nowadays getting a significant part of their training in a simulator,

am starting to think their real life response to unusual attitudes is not so good...AF 447

should have been a wake up call for the entire industry.

The facts of this situation are pretty slim at this point, but it sure looks like weather could

be a factor. So lets say your plane is flying straight towards a thunderstorm. You then make

a command decision to either fly over the top of it , or go to the sides of it. You then contact

air traffic control to ask for a course change. Let say they refuse.......Do you continue to

fly into the thunderstorm, or do you make a course change and blow off air traffic control??

You would never endanger the safety of the aircraft and it's occupants by flying into severe weather. Plan well ahead and communicate your request early to ATC. If unable then communicate your intentions to ATC or other traffic on frequencies 121.5/123.45

In certain part of the world there are specific contingency procedures published if you are unable to establish communication and a deviation is required be it for weather or technical reasons. These involve turns off track, deviating a certain distance and climbing or descending by a set amount.

You can squawk an emergency on your transponder and go anywhere you want. ATC has to clear a path for you.

[NeverSure]

Learning to fly initially in a simulator or a big plane sucks. It's only better than nothing.

Put the guy in a small general aviation plane so he feels like he's wearing the plane. His vision out of the plane to the ground and his surroundings are greatly improved. His ability to develop his kinesthetic senses 1. are massively improved.

Then grind out all of those possibilities, maneuvers and recoveries and don't let him touch an autopilot. When he can make that small plane dance he will understand the principles that he needs to know.

"1. a faculty by which the conditions or properties of things are perceived. Five major senses were traditionally considered: vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. In addition, equilibrium, hunger, thirst, malaise, pain, and other types of senses have been distinguished. The operation of all senses involves the reception of stimuli by sense organs, each of which is sensitive to a particular kind of stimulus. The eyes are sensitive to light; the ears, to sound; the olfactory organs, to odor; and the taste buds, to taste. Various sense organs of the skin and other tissues are sensitive to touch, pain, temperature, and other sensations. On receiving stimuli, the sense organ translates them into nerve impulses that are transmitted along the sensory nerves to the brain. In the cerebral cortex, the impulses are interpreted, or perceived, as sensations. The brain associates them with other information, acts upon them, and stores them as memory." LINK

Edited December 29, 2014 by NeverSure

[khaosai]

I don't know about other countries, but in the US you won't even get your first private pilot's license until you demonstrate proficiency in recovering from a stall. In a real airplane. In the air. In a real stall. Over and over until it's automatic. It's part of your flight exam too for the license. You have to show how to enter the stall to prove you know what can cause one, and then you have to recover in such a time and manner as to convince the examiner.

Indeed. When I was getting my license I had gone through countless number of stalls, both departure (full power) and approach to landing stalls (power off). You need the experience to be able to detect when you are in a configuration that is approaching that point as the most critical and likely points of stalling are taking off and landing.

Also, unusual attitudes were part of my training such as closing your eyes as the instructor takes control and puts the aircraft into a variety of maneuvers and gives you back the controls to recover. Also did it under 'the hood' that is simulated instrument conditions. You learn to trust the instruments and not your feeling. Also was required to practice spins. On my 2nd solo flight I went up and practiced departure (aka full power stalls). Something went wrong and found myself pointed straight to the ground and spinning. That was a change of underwear experience as I wasn't taught spins yet. Came back and landed still shaking and discussed it with my instructor and he explained secondary stalls.

When I was getting my license, in the first couple of hours of training time, the instructor

looked over at me and said he was going to show me a spin. Which he then immediately

did.........As we were spinning to the ground in what appeared to me to be complete loss

of control, I remember asking him if he knew how to recover..... :-) He finally did.....

So when I got my license, there was no training for spin recovery. Due to the large number

of private pilots who have died due to entering a spin after perhaps a brief interlude into

a cloud, I believe that it is now part of the training.

With so many pilots nowadays getting a significant part of their training in a simulator,

am starting to think their real life response to unusual attitudes is not so good...AF 447

should have been a wake up call for the entire industry.

The facts of this situation are pretty slim at this point, but it sure looks like weather could

be a factor. So lets say your plane is flying straight towards a thunderstorm. You then make

a command decision to either fly over the top of it , or go to the sides of it. You then contact

air traffic control to ask for a course change. Let say they refuse.......Do you continue to

fly into the thunderstorm, or do you make a course change and blow off air traffic control??

You would never endanger the safety of the aircraft and it's occupants by flying into severe weather. Plan well ahead and communicate your request early to ATC. If unable then communicate your intentions to ATC or other traffic on frequencies 121.5/123.45

In certain part of the world there are specific contingency procedures published if you are unable to establish communication and a deviation is required be it for weather or technical reasons. These involve turns off track, deviating a certain distance and climbing or descending by a set amount.

You can squawk an emergency on your transponder and go anywhere you want. ATC has to clear a path for you.

Good point regarding the transponder but in certain parts of the world I fly in I end up squawking 2000 as the transponder is of no use. You could use ADS in emergency mode but for weather deviation that would be a little extreme. A "weather deviation required" or PAN call will do the trick and if no comms then fly the contingency procedure as described.

I would imagine the majority of pilots never learn to fly in a simulator or large aircraft. The basic grounding is on small aircraft and then moving on to larger more complex aircraft as their experience levels increase. Very much the crawl, walk, run philosophy that most flight training organisations should advocate.

[Tywais]

Ouch!! I don't know how you got out of the spin without training but glad to see you're here.

BTW, this video shows nearly exactly what I was seeing but I didn't have an instructor to recover it for me. I did pretty much what the student did and induced the secondary stall. Wish I had YouTube back then.

Sorry for taking it off topic. Something that can occur when entering a storm system and climbing is a sudden change in wind direction and you lose your lift especially at the IAS that has been mentioned and can stall out.

[NeverSure]

I don't know about other countries, but in the US you won't even get your first private pilot's license until you demonstrate proficiency in recovering from a stall. In a real airplane. In the air. In a real stall. Over and over until it's automatic. It's part of your flight exam too for the license. You have to show how to enter the stall to prove you know what can cause one, and then you have to recover in such a time and manner as to convince the examiner.

Indeed. When I was getting my license I had gone through countless number of stalls, both departure (full power) and approach to landing stalls (power off). You need the experience to be able to detect when you are in a configuration that is approaching that point as the most critical and likely points of stalling are taking off and landing.

Also, unusual attitudes were part of my training such as closing your eyes as the instructor takes control and puts the aircraft into a variety of maneuvers and gives you back the controls to recover. Also did it under 'the hood' that is simulated instrument conditions. You learn to trust the instruments and not your feeling. Also was required to practice spins. On my 2nd solo flight I went up and practiced departure (aka full power stalls). Something went wrong and found myself pointed straight to the ground and spinning. That was a change of underwear experience as I wasn't taught spins yet. Came back and landed still shaking and discussed it with my instructor and he explained secondary stalls.

When I was getting my license, in the first couple of hours of training time, the instructor

looked over at me and said he was going to show me a spin. Which he then immediately

did.........As we were spinning to the ground in what appeared to me to be complete loss

of control, I remember asking him if he knew how to recover..... :-) He finally did.....

So when I got my license, there was no training for spin recovery. Due to the large number

of private pilots who have died due to entering a spin after perhaps a brief interlude into

a cloud, I believe that it is now part of the training.

With so many pilots nowadays getting a significant part of their training in a simulator,

am starting to think their real life response to unusual attitudes is not so good...AF 447

should have been a wake up call for the entire industry.

The facts of this situation are pretty slim at this point, but it sure looks like weather could

be a factor. So lets say your plane is flying straight towards a thunderstorm. You then make

a command decision to either fly over the top of it , or go to the sides of it. You then contact

air traffic control to ask for a course change. Let say they refuse.......Do you continue to

fly into the thunderstorm, or do you make a course change and blow off air traffic control??

You would never endanger the safety of the aircraft and it's occupants by flying into severe weather. Plan well ahead and communicate your request early to ATC. If unable then communicate your intentions to ATC or other traffic on frequencies 121.5/123.45

In certain part of the world there are specific contingency procedures published if you are unable to establish communication and a deviation is required be it for weather or technical reasons. These involve turns off track, deviating a certain distance and climbing or descending by a set amount.

You can squawk an emergency on your transponder and go anywhere you want. ATC has to clear a path for you.

Good point regarding the transponder but in certain parts of the world I fly in I end up squawking 2000 as the transponder is of no use. You could use ADS in emergency mode but for weather deviation that would be a little extreme. A "weather deviation required" or PAN call will do the trick and if no comms then fly the contingency procedure as described.

I would imagine the majority of pilots never learn to fly in a simulator or large aircraft. The basic grounding is on small aircraft and then moving on to larger more complex aircraft as their experience levels increase. Very much the crawl, walk, run philosophy that most flight training organisations should advocate.

I agree with everything except that I know military and airline pilots who have fewer than 50 hours in a small plane. You can get a private pilot's license with just 40 hours in the plane.

I didn't start to feel in control until I had 200 hours, and I was going out of my way to practice maneuvers rather than go cross country. At 500 hours I had a multi-engine rating and felt like I could handle an engine out emergency.

How many of these Asian airline pilots have mastered an engine out situation in a small twin where they could see, feel and hear all that was happening and react to it by instinct? Or any airline pilots? When an aircraft slows to the point just above a stall, the airframe gets quiet from lack of wind over it. At cruise there's significant noise. That's where the kinesthetic sense that's driven in comes into play. How can someone think he's nose up and about to stall when the wind rushing over the airframe is screaming out a different message?

[NeverSure]

Ouch!! I don't know how you got out of the spin without training but glad to see you're here.

BTW, this video shows nearly exactly what I was seeing but I didn't have an instructor to recover it for me. I did pretty much what the student did and induced the secondary stall. Wish I had YouTube back then.

Sorry for taking it off topic. Something that can occur when entering a storm system and climbing is a sudden change in wind direction and you lose your lift especially at the IAS that has been mentioned and can stall out.

Nice vid. THAT's what people need to practice. He recovered from the spin in less than a full turn, but it was a true spin. He obviously pushed the nose down and gave it full right rudder. Without knowledge and practice to the point of instinct, he could have augered it in. Things can go really bad in a situation like that. When the nose drops the instinct is to pull up when you need to push it down even more to gain speed. (Although I suspect he did it all on purpose as a demo for the vid.)

He was never in danger and he knew it.

Edited December 29, 2014 by NeverSure

[RigPig]

From the Herald Sun :

"While planes and ships involved in the search for missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 will still focus on patches of oil spotted in Java Sea for possible clues, he noted that an object detected yesterday turned out to be from a personal locator beacon that is usually worn by a rescuer and not the missing jet."

So much for taking your own PLB........

[RigPig]

The BBC just said the pilot was a distinguished ex-military pilot.......

[Asiantravel]

Seeing still no debris found. If they lose this one, one needs to start questioning both the competency of SE Asia pilots and SE ATC.

US commercial pilots I know, including family members, say that the training of SE Asian pilots is not up to snuff and incidents like Flight 214 resulted from chronically, poorly trained pilots that cannot fly with auto pilot disengaged. MH17 flee over a war zone, 8501 may have flown directly into a violent storm . . . and ATC seems to have the same low level of competency as well.

Is this bad equipment or operator issues? Didn't they have similar problems finding that Adam Air flight is same general area a few years back. Did that SE market grow faster than money, equipment and training could keep up?

" Is this bad equipment or operator issues? "

but in the MH370 incident you were not supportive of airlines engaging in expenditure involving real-time satellite coverage in the cockpit.

Do you still hold the same position?

Better pilot and ATC training before the plane hits the surface is more important than tracking it after it plunges into the ocean.

First off, the government would have to allocate bandwidth, most of which is now beiing utilized by or allocated to entertainment, telecommunications and military. Government agencies keep reducing aviation bands to allocate those bands for these uses. Until government teprioritizes bandwidth, there isn't sufficient channels for data telemetry.

Tracking devices are not the cure all here. Finding wreckage in the ocean is painstaking time consuming process. Debris moves with current, sometimes very rapidly. It takes time to get proper assests such as choppers and boats with appropriate equipment to detect functioning beacons just beneath the surface. Second tracking devices would still put searchers at last known coordinates, subject to drift and etc., which should not be much different than properly trained ATC with proper equipment and searches.

The solution is better trained pilots and ATC to prevent the crash, not equipment to locate bodies and scrap after incompetency caused the crash.

But there is no evidence so far of any incompetence on the part of the pilot or the ATC in this incident?

With regards to another “ painstaking time consuming process “that you refer to so far regarding MH370 is close to a quarter of $1 billion.

I have been listening to commentators last night and this morning and the question regarding GPS tracking is being asked much more aggressively by the various interviewers and it's interesting that virtually all the commentators are saying the reason it hasn't been implemented comes down to cost which is scandalous.

[Commerce]

Learning to fly initially in a simulator or a big plane sucks. It's only better than nothing.

Put the guy in a small general aviation plane so he feels like he's wearing the plane. His vision out of the plane to the ground and his surroundings are greatly improved. His ability to develop his kinesthetic senses 1. are massively improved.

Then grind out all of those possibilities, maneuvers and recoveries and don't let him touch an autopilot. When he can make that small plane dance he will understand the principles that he needs to know.

"1. a faculty by which the conditions or properties of things are perceived. Five major senses were traditionally considered: vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. In addition, equilibrium, hunger, thirst, malaise, pain, and other types of senses have been distinguished. The operation of all senses involves the reception of stimuli by sense organs, each of which is sensitive to a particular kind of stimulus. The eyes are sensitive to light; the ears, to sound; the olfactory organs, to odor; and the taste buds, to taste. Various sense organs of the skin and other tissues are sensitive to touch, pain, temperature, and other sensations. On receiving stimuli, the sense organ translates them into nerve impulses that are transmitted along the sensory nerves to the brain. In the cerebral cortex, the impulses are interpreted, or perceived, as sensations. The brain associates them with other information, acts upon them, and stores them as memory." LINK

There is a 6th sense when flying mate, and that it TIME - or "timing", for better sense of a word. Not all people have the same sense of timing - believe you me!

[NeverSure]

Are Asian maintenance standards equivalent to Western benchmarks?

No. In in order to land at first world airports they have to up their game. I apologize that I can't remember, but it hasn't been that long ago that one of the SE Asia airlines was cut off from landing in a EU country and I think it was the UK. I can't remember the details but I know it happened.

That airline had to get its standards up to requirements only for landing in the West to get the ban lifted.

Look at Thailand's helicopters which are past their sell-by date. A couple have crashed. In the last crash a Thai official said that Thailand can use the choppers longer because their maintenance is superior 555. Two of them have failed.

When I fly from the US to Thailand it's on an airline belonging to a Western country. Due to routes flown it's often a US airline but sometimes Canada or The UK.

[NeverSure]

Learning to fly initially in a simulator or a big plane sucks. It's only better than nothing.

Put the guy in a small general aviation plane so he feels like he's wearing the plane. His vision out of the plane to the ground and his surroundings are greatly improved. His ability to develop his kinesthetic senses 1. are massively improved.

Then grind out all of those possibilities, maneuvers and recoveries and don't let him touch an autopilot. When he can make that small plane dance he will understand the principles that he needs to know.

"1. a faculty by which the conditions or properties of things are perceived. Five major senses were traditionally considered: vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. In addition, equilibrium, hunger, thirst, malaise, pain, and other types of senses have been distinguished. The operation of all senses involves the reception of stimuli by sense organs, each of which is sensitive to a particular kind of stimulus. The eyes are sensitive to light; the ears, to sound; the olfactory organs, to odor; and the taste buds, to taste. Various sense organs of the skin and other tissues are sensitive to touch, pain, temperature, and other sensations. On receiving stimuli, the sense organ translates them into nerve impulses that are transmitted along the sensory nerves to the brain. In the cerebral cortex, the impulses are interpreted, or perceived, as sensations. The brain associates them with other information, acts upon them, and stores them as memory." LINK

There is a 6th sense when flying mate, and that it TIME - or "timing", for better sense of a word. Not all people have the same sense of timing - believe you me!

Oh, I agree. I've had friends get pilots' licenses and they were never meant to fly. They realized it and quit.

This should be spotted somewhere along the line before someone ever becomes an airline pilot. If I can see it riding shotgun with them, surely it should be noticed by the examiner when they go for their ATP or to get a job.

[jpinx]

Probably the most sane report and least cluttered with speculation -- also updated fairly often

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

[MrWorldwide]

Are Asian maintenance standards equivalent to Western benchmarks?

No. In in order to land at first world airports they have to up their game. I apologize that I can't remember, but it hasn't been that long ago that one of the SE Asia airlines was cut off from landing in a EU country and I think it was the UK. I can't remember the details but I know it happened.

That airline had to get its standards up to requirements only for landing in the West to get the ban lifted.

Look at Thailand's helicopters which are past their sell-by date. A couple have crashed. In the last crash a Thai official said that Thailand can use the choppers longer because their maintenance is superior 555. Two of them have failed.

When I fly from the US to Thailand it's on an airline belonging to a Western country. Due to routes flown it's often a US airline but sometimes Canada or The UK.

Garuda - and all other Indonesian airlines - was banned from all EU airports for a total of 2 years from 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garuda_Indonesia#2000.E2.80.932009:_Plummeting_reputation_and_EU_ban

[jpinx]

Are Asian maintenance standards equivalent to Western benchmarks?

No. In in order to land at first world airports they have to up their game. I apologize that I can't remember, but it hasn't been that long ago that one of the SE Asia airlines was cut off from landing in a EU country and I think it was the UK. I can't remember the details but I know it happened.

That airline had to get its standards up to requirements only for landing in the West to get the ban lifted.

Look at Thailand's helicopters which are past their sell-by date. A couple have crashed. In the last crash a Thai official said that Thailand can use the choppers longer because their maintenance is superior 555. Two of them have failed.

When I fly from the US to Thailand it's on an airline belonging to a Western country. Due to routes flown it's often a US airline but sometimes Canada or The UK.

Aircraft are like George Washingtons axe. I used to fly one old helicopter that had absolutely none of the originally manufactured aircraft in it -- everything had been replaced.

[NeverSure]

Are Asian maintenance standards equivalent to Western benchmarks?

No. In in order to land at first world airports they have to up their game. I apologize that I can't remember, but it hasn't been that long ago that one of the SE Asia airlines was cut off from landing in a EU country and I think it was the UK. I can't remember the details but I know it happened.

That airline had to get its standards up to requirements only for landing in the West to get the ban lifted.

Look at Thailand's helicopters which are past their sell-by date. A couple have crashed. In the last crash a Thai official said that Thailand can use the choppers longer because their maintenance is superior 555. Two of them have failed.

When I fly from the US to Thailand it's on an airline belonging to a Western country. Due to routes flown it's often a US airline but sometimes Canada or The UK.

Aircraft are like George Washingtons axe. I used to fly one old helicopter that had absolutely none of the originally manufactured aircraft in it -- everything had been replaced.

Was it maintained by a SE Asian country?

[HeijoshinCool]

Seeing still no debris found. If they lose this one, one needs to start questioning both the competency of SE Asia pilots and SE ATC.

US commercial pilots I know, including family members, say that the training of SE Asian pilots is not up to snuff and incidents like Flight 214 resulted from chronically, poorly trained pilots that cannot fly with auto pilot disengaged. MH17 flee over a war zone, 8501 may have flown directly into a violent storm . . . and ATC seems to have the same low level of competency as well.

Is this bad equipment or operator issues? Didn't they have similar problems finding that Adam Air flight is same general area a few years back. Did that SE market grow faster than money, equipment and training could keep up?

" Is this bad equipment or operator issues? "

but in the MH370 incident you were not supportive of airlines engaging in expenditure involving real-time satellite coverage in the cockpit.

Do you still hold the same position?

Better pilot and ATC training before the plane hits the surface is more important than tracking it after it plunges into the ocean.

First off, the government would have to allocate bandwidth, most of which is now beiing utilized by or allocated to entertainment, telecommunications and military. Government agencies keep reducing aviation bands to allocate those bands for these uses. Until government teprioritizes bandwidth, there isn't sufficient channels for data telemetry.

Tracking devices are not the cure all here. Finding wreckage in the ocean is painstaking time consuming process. Debris moves with current, sometimes very rapidly. It takes time to get proper assests such as choppers and boats with appropriate equipment to detect functioning beacons just beneath the surface. Second tracking devices would still put searchers at last known coordinates, subject to drift and etc., which should not be much different than properly trained ATC with proper equipment and searches.

The solution is better trained pilots and ATC to prevent the crash, not equipment to locate bodies and scrap after incompetency caused the crash.

But there is no evidence so far of any incompetence on the part of the pilot or the ATC in this incident?

With regards to another “ painstaking time consuming process “that you refer to so far regarding MH370 is close to a quarter of $1 billion.

I have been listening to commentators last night and this morning and the question regarding GPS tracking is being asked much more aggressively by the various interviewers and it's interesting that virtually all the commentators are saying the reason it hasn't been implemented comes down to cost which is scandalous.

.

Well, that makes no sense, does it?

Cost? Roadway Freight in the US has GPS locators hidden on all their trucks, both to keep on eye on the driver, and to locate the truck if stolen. Lo-Jacks can be bought for personal cars; $800 Apple computers can be tracked.

But we can't use GPS to track commercial aircraft or commercial cargo ships.

Hmmm.

A full-blown top of the line ELT/EPIRB costs …. $1500. Yep, cheap, huh?

[HeijoshinCool]

Are Asian maintenance standards equivalent to Western benchmarks?

No. In in order to land at first world airports they have to up their game. I apologize that I can't remember, but it hasn't been that long ago that one of the SE Asia airlines was cut off from landing in a EU country and I think it was the UK. I can't remember the details but I know it happened.

That airline had to get its standards up to requirements only for landing in the West to get the ban lifted.

Look at Thailand's helicopters which are past their sell-by date. A couple have crashed. In the last crash a Thai official said that Thailand can use the choppers longer because their maintenance is superior 555. Two of them have failed.

When I fly from the US to Thailand it's on an airline belonging to a Western country. Due to routes flown it's often a US airline but sometimes Canada or The UK.

.

I apologize that I can't remember, but it hasn't been that long ago that one of the SE Asia airlines was cut off from landing in a EU country and I think it was the UK. I can't remember the details but I know it happened.

Er, that would be Air Asia.

EU banned from 2007-2010

[MJP]

Why Air Disasters Keep Happening in Southeast Asia

To some extent, the three Malaysian air disasters are just brutal bad luck. Still, they point to several disturbing trends that raise the question of whether flying in peninsular Southeast Asia is completely safe. The air market in the region has embraced low-cost carriers, leading to a proliferation of flights throughout Southeast Asia, stretching air traffic controllers, and possibly allowing some airlines to expand too rapidly.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-12-29/why-air-disasters-keep-happening-in-southeast-asia

[Maestro]

AirAsia flight flew through ‘thunderstorm factory’: expert

Somebody "dropped the ball" when making the flight plan for missing AirAsia flight QZ8501, aviation expert Neil Hansford says.

Mr Hansford told the TODAY Show human factors were undoubtedly a factor in the jet's disappearance.

"I've said all along it was never going to be engineering," he said.

Read more at http://www.9news.com.au/national/2014/12/30/08/27/aviation-expert-says-airasia-flight-crashed-due-to-human-factors#IHBZgsFU7hLok266.99

[NeverSure]

I apologize that I can't remember, but it hasn't been that long ago that one of the SE Asia airlines was cut off from landing in a EU country and I think it was the UK. I can't remember the details but I know it happened.

Er, that would be Air Asia.

EU banned from 2007-2010

Ignorant

Better check your facts before posting

I could think of a much nicer way of saying that. I'd also make a correction if it's true.

Happy New Year.

[EyesWideOpen]

Are Asian maintenance standards equivalent to Western benchmarks?

No. In in order to land at first world airports they have to up their game. I apologize that I can't remember, but it hasn't been that long ago that one of the SE Asia airlines was cut off from landing in a EU country and I think it was the UK. I can't remember the details but I know it happened.

That airline had to get its standards up to requirements only for landing in the West to get the ban lifted.

Look at Thailand's helicopters which are past their sell-by date. A couple have crashed. In the last crash a Thai official said that Thailand can use the choppers longer because their maintenance is superior 555. Two of them have failed.

When I fly from the US to Thailand it's on an airline belonging to a Western country. Due to routes flown it's often a US airline but sometimes Canada or The UK.

.

I apologize that I can't remember, but it hasn't been that long ago that one of the SE Asia airlines was cut off from landing in a EU country and I think it was the UK. I can't remember the details but I know it happened.

Er, that would be Air Asia.

EU banned from 2007-2010

Ignorant

Better check your facts before posting

Yes fact checking is always a good idea.... Indonesia AirAsia is in essence a subsidiary of Malaysia AirAsia, so for liability purposes can be considered the same company. Which is why Tony Fernandez immediately flew to Indonesia for damage control.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia_AirAsia

"Until July 2010, Indonesia Air Asia, along with many Indonesian airlines, was banned from flying to the EU due to safety concerns. However the ban was lifted on July 2010.^[4

Edited December 30, 2014 by EyesWideOpen