AirAsia flight QZ8501 from Indonesia to Singapore missing

[Anon999]

Asking for an unusual route a great deal of consternation and raises the inevitable question WHY?

Weather ahead would be the most common.

They only mentioned cloud, nothing else, so it's a case of what was not said.

[Konini]

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.

I didn't mean ThaiVisa, to be honest I didn't even think of them (I'd already seen the full 3 page list on Twitter). I meant either Air Asia Indonesia or some Indonesian or Singaporean airport/government official.

[MaxYakov]

AirAsia flight QZ8501: Pilot asked to fly at higher altitude to avoid clouds

JAKARTA (REUTERS) – The missing AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501 had been flying at 32,000 feet and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid clouds, said an Indonesian official.

Joko Muryo Atmodjo, air transportation director at the Transport Ministry, told a news conference that the aircraft was between the Indonesian port of Tanjung Pandan and the town of Pontianak, in West Kalimantan on Borneo island, when it went missing,

It was bound for Changi Airport in Singapore at 8.30am on Sunday.

-- Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-east-asia/story/airasia-indonesia-flight-qz8501-pilot-asked-fly-higher-altitude-avoi#sthash.WTJeLBcM.dpuf

Clouds? Or were they attempting to "outclimb a thunderstorm", as someone on PPRuNe put it.

[Konini]

I recall years ago a plane deliberately going down in water just offshore so that rafts could reach land.

I didn't know that, the pilot must have been incredibly skilled (not to mention brave and heroic). No bodies have been found so far, so there is still hope for those aboard.

[GentlemanJim]

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Asking for an unusual route causes a great deal of consternation and raises the inevitable question WHY?

Well try looking at the weather radar picture on page 1 and that might answer your question and ease your consternations. The area is cluttered with very dense very active thunder storm cells, the pilot would have been picking these up on radar and in an attempt to avoid them would have requested alternative routing from air traffic control. The routing would be dependent on where the aircraft was in relation to the thunder storm cells. Under the conditions it would be perfectly normal for aircraft to request alternative routing. The only question raised in my mind is that the area looks so bad in terms of weather the aircraft should have simply delayed an hour or two on the ground. The met picture for the area is/was horrendous, but hindsight is a beautiful thing! Back to your point, there is no issue for you to be concerned about at all, asking for another route would have been a sensible thing to do, seems it needed doing earlier though!

[Lite Beer]

RT @AsCorrespondent: #QZ8501 LIVE: UNCONFIRMED reports still coming in that flight QZ5801 may have crashed in Belitung Timur, #Indonesia http://asiancorrespondent.com/129391/flight-qz8501-live/

[george]

"It was slightly cloudy but nothing unusual": Passenger on another flight from Surabaya to Singapore: https://twitter.com/ChannelNewsAsia/status/549086268374523905

[NeverSure]

AirAsia flight QZ8501: Pilot asked to fly at higher altitude to avoid clouds

JAKARTA (REUTERS) – The missing AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501 had been flying at 32,000 feet and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid clouds, said an Indonesian official.

Joko Muryo Atmodjo, air transportation director at the Transport Ministry, told a news conference that the aircraft was between the Indonesian port of Tanjung Pandan and the town of Pontianak, in West Kalimantan on Borneo island, when it went missing,

It was bound for Changi Airport in Singapore at 8.30am on Sunday.

-- Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-east-asia/story/airasia-indonesia-flight-qz8501-pilot-asked-fly-higher-altitude-avoi#sthash.WTJeLBcM.dpuf

Clouds? Or were they attempting to "outclimb a thunderstorm", as someone on PPRuNe put it.

Can't be done. Thunderstorms can top out way higher than the plane can fly. The air above it would be nasty if not deadly.

[Lite Beer]

RT @ChannelNewsAsia: RT @NajibRazak: Very sad to hear that AirAsia Indonesia QZ8501 is missing. My thoughts are with the families. Malaysia stands ready to help.

[george]

Indonesia's air transportation director-general Djoko Murjatmodjo: "Let's hope that this no more than a problem of losing contact. If there's an accident, the ELT is supposed to be detected but in this case there is none detected."

Source: http://nasional.kompas.com/read/2014/12/28/12531771/Kemenhub.Masih.Optimistis.AirAsia.Tidak.Alami.Kecelakaan

[Mosha]

Unconfirmed reports of wreckage spotted are surfacing.

[smedly]

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.

Is it possible all communications ceased at once? Lightning Strike? No warning?

very very unlikely if not impossible and if it did very hard to understand why, planes are protected against lightning strikes, physical damage may occur like a burn but electrical damage no, lightning in the air passes between clouds at different potential it would simply pass over the airframe a greater danger possibly exists at lower altitude below a lightning storm but again this would be physical damage, pilots avoid lightning clouds because of turbulence associated with them.

The airbus 320 the taxi in the sky is an extremely reliable aircraft, either something of a freak nature happened here or a catastrophic mechanical failure - reasoning - complete loss of radio contact

A very sad news story to read, I hope something of a miracle happens today but I'm not holding my breath

[Lite Beer]

RT @W7VOA: RT @SatelliteAIS: Vessel traffic area in region of #QZ8501 http://twitter.com/SatelliteAIS/status/549089671834529792/photo/1

[apetley]

Asking for an unusual route causes a great deal of consternation and raises the inevitable question WHY?

An unusual route would be any route asked for other than the usual flightpath. It is normal aviation speak to describe a detour around bad weather as an unusual route.

[Rooo]

Mass pruning of OFF TOPIC & posts quoting deleted posts.

[george]

National Search and Rescue Agency spokesman now giving the crash site as 3 degrees 22'46" S, 108 degrees 50' 07" E, or about 145 km E of Belitung.

AirAsia plane downed in Belitung waters: Reports | The Jakarta Post

[smedly]

AirAsia flight QZ8501: Pilot asked to fly at higher altitude to avoid clouds

JAKARTA (REUTERS) – The missing AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501 had been flying at 32,000 feet and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid clouds, said an Indonesian official.

Joko Muryo Atmodjo, air transportation director at the Transport Ministry, told a news conference that the aircraft was between the Indonesian port of Tanjung Pandan and the town of Pontianak, in West Kalimantan on Borneo island, when it went missing,

It was bound for Changi Airport in Singapore at 8.30am on Sunday.

-- Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-east-asia/story/airasia-indonesia-flight-qz8501-pilot-asked-fly-higher-altitude-avoi#sthash.WTJeLBcM.dpuf

Clouds? Or were they attempting to "outclimb a thunderstorm", as someone on PPRuNe put it.

Can't be done. Thunderstorms can top out way higher than the plane can fly. The air above it would be nasty if not deadly.

I would have thought that 38,000 feet is at the very edge of this aircrafts maximum altitude, and reports that it was doing under 400knots describes a struggling steep climb to reach it, this would also have been under auto pilot control I believe - punch in new altitude and the AP does the rest - or is supposed to

I wonder is it possible the AP stalled the aircraft then control was lost and it broke up, I wonder if such a high altitude flight change is allowed by the AP or was this pilot error, who knows - just thinking out loud, any pilots on here confirm how these things are done on a modern aircraft

Edited December 28, 2014 by smedly

[Lite Beer]

White House monitoring missing AirAsia situation
WASHINGTON

The White House said it was monitoring the situation surrounding an AirAsia plane that disappeared traveling from Indonesia to Singapore and that President Barack Obama was briefed on the matter.

The Airbus A320-200 with 162 people on board left Juanda international airport in Surabaya in east Java at 5:20 am Sunday and had been expected to arrive in Singapore at 8:30 am (0030 GMT).

"The president has been briefed on AirAsia Flight 8501 and White House officials will continue to monitor the situation," White House spokesman Eric Schultz said late Saturday.

Malaysia-based AirAsia said the pilot of flight QZ8501 had requested "deviation" from the its flight plan because of bad weather, and that a search and rescue operation was underway.

Indonesia’s air transportation director general Djoko Murjatmodjo told AFP the plane was carrying seven crew and 155 passengers -- 138 adults, 16 children and a baby.

Local broadcaster MetroTV reported that the passengers included 149 Indonesians, three South Koreans, including a baby, one Briton and one Malaysian and one Singaporean.

Obama and his family are on vacation in his home state of Hawaii for the holidays.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/White-House-monitoring-missing-AirAsia-situation-30250831.html

-- The Nation 2014-12-28

[george]

Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong: Called Pres @jokowi_do2 to offer help. Two RSAF C-130 search & locate aircrafts are on standby. Our ministers will follow up.

[george]

The reason of why the ELT is not detected could be that the ELT is damaged or the plane landed smoothly. Head of SAR, Sutrisno: "If there's a crash or the plane entered water, the ELT should've activated"

Source: http://news.detik.com/read/2014/12/28/132829/2788305/10/ini-sebab-elt-airasia-qz-8501-tak-terdeteksi-radar-basarnas

[GentlemanJim]

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Weather ahead would be the most common.

They only mentioned cloud, nothing else, so it's a case of what was not said.

They have not even identified the wreckage yet and you are quoting a snippet in the media as being an accurate representation of the actual words spoken by the pilot to air traffic. Please!

AirAsia flight QZ8501: Pilot asked to fly at higher altitude to avoid clouds

JAKARTA (REUTERS) – The missing AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501 had been flying at 32,000 feet and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid clouds, said an Indonesian official.

Joko Muryo Atmodjo, air transportation director at the Transport Ministry, told a news conference that the aircraft was between the Indonesian port of Tanjung Pandan and the town of Pontianak, in West Kalimantan on Borneo island, when it went missing,

It was bound for Changi Airport in Singapore at 8.30am on Sunday.

-- Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-east-asia/story/airasia-indonesia-flight-qz8501-pilot-asked-fly-higher-altitude-avoi#sthash.WTJeLBcM.dpuf

Clouds? Or were they attempting to "outclimb a thunderstorm", as someone on PPRuNe put it.

More than likely but as the thunderstorms in that area were topping out above 45k then a climb of 2000ft would not appear satisfactory but we were not there at the time and do not know the real conditions. There is no need for a pilot to climb to avoid cloud as flying in cloud is not an issue, it is what the cloud might be hiding that is an issue and in this case it was very big active thunder storms.

[Mrjlh]

The danger for the aircraft is not "Lightening" it is "Hail". If enough hail gets sucked into the engines it stalls. In engine testing you can shoot water directly from a fire hose into a jet engine and it will keep running but inject ice...bad things happen. Also a A320 also has a "ditch switch" for water landings . The pilot if he able too can ditch in water and the plane floats. But now I'm hearing they found wreckage but that's unconfirmed.

[MaxYakov]

From Guardian’s Jakarta contributor Kate Lamb -

According to

Djoko Atmojo

, acting director general of transportation -

At 6.12am the plane made contact asking to ascend to 38,000 feet because of cloud.

At 6.16am the plane was still on the radar.

At 6.18 am the plane went missing from the radar.

Last position of the plane was between Tanjung Pandan and Pontianak. 155 passengers, 7 cabin crew.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2014/dec/28/airasia-flight-loses-contact-with-air-traffic-control-on-route-from-indonesia-to-singapore

These references to "cloud" is a little discncerting to me. I guess they are trying to keep it simple (but not too simple) for the public. What they were probably trying to avoid was one or more Cumulonimbus formations (aka CB or thunderstorm). AFAIC, it was a CB that began the dreadful sequence of events that caused the loss of AF447 as well as many other aircraft that have attempted to take on a CB rather than to avoid it.

[Mrjlh]

The "ELT" can be activated manually also.

[Tywais]

National Search and Rescue Agency spokesman now giving the crash site as 3 degrees 22'46" S, 108 degrees 50' 07" E, or about 145 km E of Belitung.

AirAsia plane downed in Belitung waters: Reports | The Jakarta Post

That would put it here:

[george]

FlightRadar24 co-founder Michael Robertsson has told ABC News he believes the incident was weather-related.

[lostinisaan]

Asking for an unusual route a great deal of consternation and raises the inevitable question WHY?

Weather ahead would be the most common.

They only mentioned cloud, nothing else, so it's a case of what was not said.

Pilots usually avoid to fly into clouds, especially when lightnings appear. I almost got killed when flying with a friend in a Ultralight plane.

No more communication through heavy rain, we couldn't see where we were and our GPS was off as well.

And I'm talking about a dragon with the engine behind you, where you're not surrounded by anything.

We had the feeling that we're reborn when we finally managed to land somewhere on a field.

[NeverSure]

AirAsia flight QZ8501: Pilot asked to fly at higher altitude to avoid clouds

JAKARTA (REUTERS) – The missing AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501 had been flying at 32,000 feet and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid clouds, said an Indonesian official.

Joko Muryo Atmodjo, air transportation director at the Transport Ministry, told a news conference that the aircraft was between the Indonesian port of Tanjung Pandan and the town of Pontianak, in West Kalimantan on Borneo island, when it went missing,

It was bound for Changi Airport in Singapore at 8.30am on Sunday.

-- Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/south-east-asia/story/airasia-indonesia-flight-qz8501-pilot-asked-fly-higher-altitude-avoi#sthash.WTJeLBcM.dpuf

Clouds? Or were they attempting to "outclimb a thunderstorm", as someone on PPRuNe put it.

Can't be done. Thunderstorms can top out way higher than the plane can fly. The air above it would be nasty if not deadly.

I would have thought that 38,000 feet is at the very edge of this aircrafts maximum altitude, and reports that it was doing under 400knots describes a struggling steep climb to reach it, this would also have been under auto pilot control I believe - punch in new altitude and the AP does the rest - or is supposed to

I wonder is it possible the AP stalled the aircraft then control was lost and it broke up, I wonder if such a high altitude flight change is allowed by the AP or was this pilot error, who knows - just thinking out loud, any pilots on here confirm how these things are done on a modern aircraft

38,000 feet above sea level (ASL) is approaching the max height that plane could fly depending on gross weight, density altitude, etc. Thunderstorms can top out at 60,000 depending on the storm. Those storms on radar looked massive.

[lostinisaan]

FlightRadar24 co-founder Michael Robertsson has told ABC News he believes the incident was weather-related.

George, let's hope it was fast and painless. Losing consciousness and not going through a nightmare.....

[LuckyLew]

I recall years ago a plane deliberately going down in water just offshore so that rafts could reach land.

I didn't know that, the pilot must have been incredibly skilled (not to mention brave and heroic). No bodies have been found so far, so there is still hope for those aboard.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/year-anniversary-hudson-river-plane-crash-gallery-1.1579817