AirAsia flight QZ8501 from Indonesia to Singapore missing

[BernieOnTour]

Expect the mother of all cock-ups by the Indo authorities if search and rescue comes into the picture.

Yep - Singapore SAF had two C-130 on standby to assist in SAR waiting for a request from Indonesia, but I did not read anything about such a request...

[Lite Beer]

RT @W7VOA: UNCONFIRMED MT @cctvnews: #BREAKING Airplane wreckage reportedly found east of #BelitungIsland, in Indonesia.

[jpinx]

Radar of the thunderstorm -- taken from twitter..

[Loles]

very, very sad.

Unless I'm mistaken the Airasia has never lost aircraft.

I would like to believe in miracle, but it's no time for it.

[MaxYakov]

It's getting like the Bermuda triangle around this area of air space. Makes you wonder.

Making you wonder, I suppose.

[Tywais]

[updated statement] QZ8501

December 28, 2014 at 12:23pm

AirAsia Indonesia regrets to confirm that flight QZ8501 from Surabaya to Singapore has lost contact with air traffic control at 07:24 (Surabaya LT) this morning. The flight took off from Juanda International Airport in Surabaya at 0535hours.

The aircraft was an Airbus A320-200 with the registration number PK-AXC. There were two pilots, four flight attendants and one engineer on board.

The captain in command had a total of 6,100 flying hours and the first officer a total of 2,275 flying hours

There were 155 passengers on board, with 138 adults, 16 children and 1 infant. Also on board were 2 pilots and 5 cabin crew.

Nationalities of passengers and crew onboard are as below:

1 Singapore

1 Malaysia

3 South Korean

157 Indonesia

At this time, search and rescue operations are being conducted under the guidance of The Indonesia of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). AirAsia Indonesia is cooperating fully and assisting the investigation in every possible way.

The aircraft was on the submitted flight plan route and was requesting deviation due to enroute weather before communication with the aircraft was lost while it was still under the control of the Indonesian Air Traffic Control (ATC).

The aircraft had undergone its last scheduled maintenance on 16 November 2014.

AirAsia has established an Emergency Call Centre that is available for family or friends of those who may have been on board the aircraft. The number is: +622129850801.

AirAsia will release further information as soon as it becomes available. Updated information will also be posted on the AirAsia website, www.airasia.com.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/airasia/updated-statement-qz8501/10152667884908742

[Rinrada]

Sad...But afraid its not looking positive.....from the Insider......Still hopefull...but....

An aircraft has reportedly crashed in the waters off East Belitung,off the east coast of Sumatra,after authorities confirmed that AirAsia Flight QZ8501 went missing earlier today.

The Bangka Pos news portal said there was no confirmation of the crash site.

"Pak Danlanud called Bapak Basuri to say that an Airbus aircraft had crashed in the Beltim waters," the portal quoted Yuhinu, the adjutant to the local authority chief Basuri T Purnama. googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1400601790726-3');});

Beltim refers to Belitung Timur.

The flight with 155 on board had left Surabaya at 5.20am Indonesian time and was scheduled to land in Singapore at 8.30am Singapore time. Western Indonesia is an hour behind both Malaysia and Singapore.

www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/reports-of-plane-crash-in-belitung-timur-says-indonesian-portal#sthash.bpWiLABH.dpuf

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/reports-of-plane-crash-in-belitung-timur-says-indonesian-portal

[ThaiSanookGuy]

You must get used to it it will happen more and more as airlines are still a very good business whatever people have said in the past (as well as shortage of oil...), this is not coincidence if new airlines open every month...

[draftvader]

Looking more like a catastrophic event involving the weather that the captain was trying to avoid. It doesn't look like a complete disintegration so can any pilots/ex-pilots comment on the plane losing all power in this situation and that knocking out the emergency transponders?

[Lite Beer]

[updated statement] QZ8501
28 December 2014 at 12:23

AirAsia Indonesia regrets to confirm that flight QZ8501 from Surabaya to Singapore has lost contact with air traffic control at 07:24 (Surabaya LT) this morning. The flight took off from Juanda International Airport in Surabaya at 0535hours.

The aircraft was an Airbus A320-200 with the registration number PK-AXC. There were two pilots, four flight attendants and one engineer on board.

The captain in command had a total of 6,100 flying hours and the first officer a total of 2,275 flying hours

There were 155 passengers on board, with 138 adults, 16 children and 1 infant. Also on board were 2 pilots and 5 cabin crew.

Nationalities of passengers and crew onboard are as below:
1 Singapore
1 Malaysia
3 South Korean
157 Indonesia

At this time, search and rescue operations are being conducted under the guidance of The Indonesia of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). AirAsia Indonesia is cooperating fully and assisting the investigation in every possible way.

The aircraft was on the submitted flight plan route and was requesting deviation due to enroute weather before communication with the aircraft was lost while it was still under the control of the Indonesian Air Traffic Control (ATC).

The aircraft had undergone its last scheduled maintenance on 16 November 2014.

AirAsia has established an Emergency Call Centre that is available for family or friends of those who may have been on board the aircraft. The number is: +622129850801.

AirAsia will release further information as soon as it becomes available. Updated information will also be posted on the AirAsia website, www.airasia.com.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/airasia/updated-statement-qz8501/10152667884908742

[MaxYakov]

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/553569-air-asia-indonesia-lost-contact-surabaya-singapore.html

With the moderators' permission, a link to the professionals...

Yes ... well ... PPRuNe is not limited to aviation professionals, as anyone who reads that site knows. The posters are not yet at level one speculation yet on this, but give them a few more hours (or minutes).

Edited December 28, 2014 by MaxYakov

[Prbkk]

While weather could well be a factor there is a rather cryptic message from ATC: the plane requested an "unusual" route.

[NeverSure]

Radar of the thunderstorm -- taken from twitter..

CB.jpg

That is a huge and dense thunderstorm. Hail is formed by water dropping, catching a strong updraft, going high enough to freeze and then dropping again picking up more moisture. The cycle repeats with the updraft taking it up and freezing the new layer on it. It keeps doing that until the hail is too large for the updraft to lift or until it gets tossed out of the updraft.

When the center is that dark it is very dense and powerful.

Enough hail ingested into the engines can cause compressor stall and the plane has no power.

Edited December 28, 2014 by NeverSure

[inbangkok]

Truly terrifying. Lets hope this ends better than the last jet that went missing.

[MobileContent]

It does looks like bad weather this morning North of Java.

[draftvader]

There is a commercial runway on Belitung. Could the pilot have been trying to glide the plane down towards that? Can anybody do the maths required to see how far the plane would have got gliding with no power from its last known location?

[spacemand]

While weather could well be a factor there is a rather cryptic message from ATC: the plane requested an "unusual" route.

Nothing cryptic, its for anything deviating from the "normal" route and it seems that weather is the factor here so that is highly likely its the cause for the request.

[Konini]

Very sad indeed. I just hope for their sakes that unless they are sitting in life rafts that it happened so quickly they wouldn't have known what was happening. My thoughts are with their families.

Isn't it bad form to publish the passenger list so early? I thought this information was usually held close to the chest until they were certain what had happened and family had been notified. It seems very odd, but perhaps I'm mistaken and it's normal.

[MrWorldwide]

If as looks likely, this will be AirAsia's 1st frame loss.

That may be the case, but it will be the 3rd for a Malaysian-based carrier in ~12 months - I know AirAsia and MAS are completely different airlines, but I have no doubt that the media will chase that angle. Talk of the region becoming a 'Bermudia Triangle' based on the disappearance of two aircraft is ludicrous given the volume of air traffic in the same skies every day, but MH370 is one missing-wtihout-trace aircraft too many - lets hope they find out what happened to this one.

(MAS17 is a completely different case to MH370, but its still a downed aircraft)

[happysanook]

Severe weather and a request for a different routing. Looks like weather trouble to me. There are still weather events that planes like to avoid. From the looks of the location and the altitude there is still a chance that the craft got down somewhere remote. I hope.

This is an extremely positive view of events. Request for a Flight path change has me thinking something entirely different.

[NeverSure]

Looking more like a catastrophic event involving the weather that the captain was trying to avoid. It doesn't look like a complete disintegration so can any pilots/ex-pilots comment on the plane losing all power in this situation and that knocking out the emergency transponders?

The transponders will run for a looong time on batteries.

I just wrote about compressor stall from hail which would put the plane into a power-off glide. We can hope the were able to glide and make a water landing. The water landing is very hard to do. Recall it happened in "The Miracle on The Hudson" in NY when bird strikes stalled the engines?

[spacemand]

Isn't it bad form to publish the passenger list so early? I thought this information was usually held close to the chest until they were certain what had happened and family had been notified. It seems very odd, but perhaps I'm mistaken and it's normal.

Yes a new low from TV especially since its not an official release.

Very very bad taste.

[jpinx]

Very sad indeed. I just hope for their sakes that unless they are sitting in life rafts that it happened so quickly they wouldn't have known what was happening. My thoughts are with their families.

Isn't it bad form to publish the passenger list so early? I thought this information was usually held close to the chest until they were certain what had happened and family had been notified. It seems very odd, but perhaps I'm mistaken and it's normal.

With the instant access nowadays it's better for the proper authorities to publish the correct information before someone/some troll puts a misleading list online

[george]

05:33 GMT: Airplane wreckage has reportedly been found east of Belitung Island in Indonesia, according to CCTV. The information has not yet been confirmed by Air Asia.

[Cuchulainn]

My thoughts and prayers are with the poor souls on board.

[harish]

We all pray for them, God save their lives

[Time Traveller]

There is a commercial runway on Belitung. Could the pilot have been trying to glide the plane down towards that? Can anybody do the maths required to see how far the plane would have got gliding with no power from its last known location?

Yes I can, just provide me with the altitude and velocity at the time the engine died. Also let me know the mass of the aircraft and drag co-efficient as well.

Edited December 28, 2014 by Time Traveller

[NeverSure]

There is a commercial runway on Belitung. Could the pilot have been trying to glide the plane down towards that? Can anybody do the maths required to see how far the plane would have got gliding with no power from its last known location?

No. We'd have to know the starting altitude, distance, and glide slope of the plane at the weight it was carrying. We'd also have to have info about head or tail winds if any. Too much unknown.

[george]

The last communication between QZ8501's pilot and air traffic control was when he requested to increase his altitude to 34,000 feet due to bad weather, Indonesia's Metro TV reported.

[draftvader]

There is a commercial runway on Belitung. Could the pilot have been trying to glide the plane down towards that? Can anybody do the maths required to see how far the plane would have got gliding with no power from its last known location?

No. We'd have to know the starting altitude, distance, and glide slope of the plane at the weight it was carrying. We'd also have to have info about head or tail winds if any. Too much unknown.

True. With that storm in the area I think I was asking the impossible. Looks academic now though, sadly.