AirAsia flight QZ8501 was not cleared to fly route, says Indonesia

[lucifer666]

So an unauthorised flight on an unauthorised route and not a single Air Traffic Controller/ Radar, spotted it ?. Sounds like someone is attempting to limit their blame here. On another report i read, the pilot had asked for a change of route, due to adverse weather, and was refused. But as with most tabloids these days, only 1 percent of the story is the truth.

[DekDaeng]

I don't think Air Asia is dodgy...

An employee probably just forgot to fill out and submit a form to a government agency, perhaps didn't even know that it was needed.

You forgot to say, 'happens every day'

[Mudcrab]

Dodgy.

More aspects than 1 make these budget airlines dodgy......meanwhile dummies keep linng up to fly with them....you save a bit of cash though.

Utter bullsh*t.

What we are now seeing is actually an institutional opportunity to blame the pilot. This sort of crap happens everywhere, even Scandinavia and especially the USA.

Budget airlines are not about dummies lining up to save money, because if you want all the extras, the prices are almost on a par with regular airlines. It's about the way one is able to book, and select the extras according precisely to what is required. It avoids masses of waste which is all costed in to the regular airline ticket. So much food is wasted on full price airline flights, food that is paid for by everyone, whether they want it or not. They have to carry a lot in order to provide choice. Every kilo of food that is carried, eaten or not, adds to the payload and therefor the fuel bill. Luggage, where do I start? ... I'll save my breath and simply say: "Clearly, you know nothing."

Air Asia is an excellent airline. I fly with them often, and will continue to do so.

If I were to be concerned about budget airlines cutting corners in the safety area, as far as the West is concerned, I'd rather walk than use a commuter airline in the USA.

Agree totally with what you are saying.....except... institutional opportunity to blame the pilot.

The could have been operational imperatives etc causing pressure.

But

At the end of the day the pilot is in charge and makes all aircraft decisions, including air worthiness before take off.

​Yes, ultimately the pilot is to blame.

Cut, slice and dice any way you want it still comes back to the person in control.

[than]

If ATC cleared them , then they had permission , trying to pass the buck ?

Are you saying ATC has copies of all license agreements for every airline departing and landing in a given location. You do realize that ATC has a lot if stress placed on them just trying to keep planes from running into each other and perhaps has no time to try and figure out if an airline is ignoring their license agreement with a given country.

.

ATC has no involvement in where airlines are licensed to fly. They are asked for clearances, and give them.

The bigger questions would be:

how did the airline expect to get away with it (they would know they would be caught out);

why did the flight leave an unprecedented two hours early;

why did ATC wait almost an hour after losing contact with the aircraft, before reporting it lost;

and why did Tony Fernandez sell almost a million shares of Air Asia's Tune Insurance (the insurance travelers buy when booking the flight) two days before the incident?

ATC and FIR are involve in Flight route and authorization. first when a company make a flight it file flight route date and time to flights offices of Singapore and Indonesia. If there are a problem one of this two offices must to tell...... Now on CAAS website, Singapore give authorization to Indonesia Air Asia to operate flight that day. This is under agreement between Indonesia and Singapore............

[Mudcrab]

Say what you like, but Air Asia has had an outstanding safety record and there is NOTHING so far to suggest this incident was the fault of Air Asia or that it's safety is questionable.

Apart from 160 dead...perfectly safe.

[Mudcrab]

I have steadfastly refused to fly air asia for several years now. this was because of the way they treated a planeload of passengers - including myself in Singapore.

I felt that their lack of concern for their customers; high-handed, off- handed and even under-handed, making us stay overnight in the airport after cancelling a flight was unacceptable.

It occurred to me that a airline prepared to treat its "cargo" like this was in the end going to take unnecessary shortcuts at the expense of their customers ..... looks like I may have been right.

I had the same experience in Singapore with Jetstar. Then I had to book and pay for a hotel as well.

Any Ryanair stories guys?

Deal with it Wilco....that's what you get with budget airlines...read the fine print.

You are the cargo.

[Straight8]

Hopefully the victims of the crash won't die in vein. This could be the catalyst for big changes in the airline industry, especially after all the issues such as Pilot experience, Training, employment conditions, P2F, maintenance short cuts, Automation of flying, Pilots lack of 'hand flying' experience, dangerous SOPS which place saving money over airmanship and all the other little dodgy practises come to light.

.....in the meantime the masses will still line up to save $10 or $20 in a flight.

Well it's LLC days may be over, if this ends up costing them a packet.

I was always able to save an average of about $150.00 over a non-LLC like Emirates,Thai, Qantas etc using AirAsia in the past. I mean it had to be at least $100 - 200 to make it worth my while doing a stop over [to name one inconvenience] instead of direct flight from Oz. with say Emirates etc.

[DekDaeng]

The Plane SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN FLYING on a Sunday.

Wot, god dun it?

[Mudcrab]

Dodgy.

More aspects than 1 make these budget airlines dodgy......meanwhile dummies keep linng up to fly with them....you save a bit of cash though.

Contender for most stupid post. AirAsia safety record is better than most. As for not having authorised flight time. Separate issue. More about self interest. I fly AirAsia OFTEN. Brilliant service. Please come back with sensible stats with sensible post. And yes AirAsia just overflew run way days back in phillipines. So did Thai airways few months back in bkk

I've put a fair bit of information onto this forum regarding Budget Carriers, P2F Airlines and other 'piloting' issues regarding Automation and so forth. I can just keep regurgitating the information over and over.

It's not up to me to educate the greater general public about what is going on in the industry but it certainly would be wise for people to start making informed decisions about who they are really riding with. Can't anyone see that the flight you are on is only as good as the 'pilot' driving the bloody thang?

Perhaps it's beyond some peoples basic comprehension that aircraft are complex pieces of equipment and their complexities keep growing with all this marvellous forms of wizardry and gadgets. The problem is when all this compoentry messes up and control is handed back to the pilots, it seems the newer breed of pilot is incapable of dealing with the issue of flying the aircraft. This isn't entirely the pilots fault, as airlines push Procedures about how much 'stick time' pilots get verses what time the a/c is on auto control. Then there's the issue regarding piloting experience where it's common to see guys get command with 5,000-8,000 hours and at the same time their F.O.'s are riding shotgun on some P2F scheme with just 800 hrs up their sleeves and so on.

It seems people doesn't recognise the importance of having a minimum of at least 2 experienced pilots watching over each other and less experienced crew forming part of a 3 person flight crew. Maybe people just don't understand the workload saturation that can occur during an emergency situation and think that one experienced pilot is enough, afterall, what could go wrong, the plane basically flies itself. Lol.

Putting accountants and bean counters in charge of issues that should be left to competent pilots with 'airmanship' was always going,to be problematic.

If you think I am the only one concerned with such a thing, then run along and check for yourself there's an entire squadron of former and retired pilots that have been voicing these concerns and others for decades. I am just one of these.

Large wide bodies commercial aircraft need to be flown by experienced crew who have had continual training and plenty of manual and continuing 'manual' flying experience. End of story. Of course, what is actually happening is the opposite to that and it's all driven Around saving money.

The Aviation authorities all around the world have dropped the ball, actually the ball was dropped so long ago, none of them can even see where it originally landed.

Finally, something that makes sense......although you did miss one bit.....we don't fly aircraft into <deleted> thunderstorms.

[IAMHERE]

That the only one flying without permission? Is that an Indonesian way of saying 'undocumented' ?

[crusty]

Dodgy.

More aspects than 1 make these budget airlines dodgy......meanwhile dummies keep linng up to fly with them....you save a bit of cash though.

Contender for most stupid post. AirAsia safety record is better than most. As for not having authorised flight time. Separate issue. More about self interest. I fly AirAsia OFTEN. Brilliant service. Please come back with sensible stats with sensible post. And yes AirAsia just overflew run way days back in phillipines. So did Thai airways few months back in bkk

Brilliant service ? Air Asia even invited two teen Aussie girls to ride with them in the cockpit from take off to landing ! Not an airline I would fly with !

[Gandtee]

So, what bearing does this have on the accident? None, I would suggest. It just points out a lack of competence in the people who regulate flying times. An Indonesian in house problem.

[than]

It was already strange that Air Asia changed the flight's departure time to two hours earlier than the original time. I haven't seen any explanation given for that.

One possible explanation could be that at this peak period of the year the flight was overbooked and ground staff preferred to let it take off two hours before scheduled departure (indeed some people missed this flight due to the earlier departure and survived).

What is the meaning of "not cleared" : that this was a flight added before paperwork was done.... to cope with too high demand?

Yes your in the money. Also I think AirAsia are only allowed to opperate from that airport certain number of days. In any event the cause of crash is speculation.

I don't like people posting ideas with no basis....however just as an input.... I rent my home in AU to 3 pilots. We had a chat when I was briefly in AU. They used technical terms but the gist was....in certain weather conditions, water droplets are pushed upward at incredible speed. Less speed they hit plane as ice and just bounce off. In some instances the are still droplets of water and cling to aircraft. They then turn into ice. This process continues. Also this very good aircraft is controlled very much by computer system. They then send all conflicting messages etc. The lads mentioned that this happened with a famous air crash. Think it was air France.

All this is second hand knowledge. Just found it interesting. I have zero background in aeronautics.

If you have sore donk pm me

It was Air France 447 & exactly some of what I refer to many times. The AF447 crash is a really good example of inexperience not identifying with a basic condition of flight 'aerodynamic stall' . It's also a good example of Automation gone crazy.

Bring back Cables and flight controls, or at least give pilots plenty of opportunities to use the ones they have. No go check airline sops about the manual flying of aircraft.

In AF447 final report show a lot of mistake from crew, first one no apply false IAS procedure, second pilot on command no proceed correctly with stall at high altitude... The FO and the second pilot were not enough training in this condition of flight. Captain was not the competence to pilot this day due to lack of rest......

BEA report :

• temporary inconsistency between the measured speeds, likely as a result of the obstruction of the pitot tubes by ice crystals, causing autopilot disconnection and reconfiguration to alternate law;
• the crew made inappropriate control inputs that destabilized the flight path;
• the crew failed to follow appropriate procedure for loss of displayed airspeed information;
• the crew were late in identifying and correcting the deviation from the flight path;
• the crew lacked understanding of the approach to stall;
• the crew failed to recognize that the aircraft had stalled and consequently did not make inputs that would have made it possible to recover from the stall.

[Lupatria]

So they got clearance from the tower for take off and support from the ATC. Both services charge money and when money is god (licensed or not) everyone can fly.

[joshstiles]

strange that they were allowed takeoff???

[GentlemanJim]

<

If ATC cleared them , then they had permission , trying to pass the buck ?

Are you saying ATC has copies of all license agreements for every airline departing and landing in a given location. You do realize that ATC has a lot if stress placed on them just trying to keep planes from running into each other and perhaps has no time to try and figure out if an airline is ignoring their license agreement with a given country.

This is nothing to do with license agreements. The Indonesians are playing games. By revoking Air Asia's license it means their own national carrier can pick up the slack AND take over the slots, there is a LOT of money to be made here.

Saying this flight was unauthorized is BS. It WOULD have been flight planned, that means it must be given a slot time to take off AND Singapore must have had an arrival time. No flight plan, no flight ever ever ever. It is likely that due to the time of year and how busy it was extra slots were negotiated, it seems some Minister didn't get his slice of the pie. Focusing on this is utter crap and a damning indictment on The Indonesian Ministry.

I also do not believe for a nano second that the Pilots went on that flight without a Met Brief, again it is another red herring. If the local Met Office was closed they would have got one from else where. I just find it inconceivable that what the Indonesians are suggesting is anything other than political meddling in the extreme.

Edited January 4, 2015 by GentlemanJim

[neverdie]

<p>

It was already strange that Air Asia changed the flight's departure time to two hours earlier than the original time. I haven't seen any explanation given for that.

One possible explanation could be that at this peak period of the year the flight was overbooked and ground staff preferred to let it take off two hours before scheduled departure (indeed some people missed this flight due to the earlier departure and survived).What is the meaning of "not cleared" : that this was a flight added before paperwork was done.... to cope with too high demand?

Yes your in the money. Also I think AirAsia are only allowed to opperate from that airport certain number of days. In any event the cause of crash is speculation.I don't like people posting ideas with no basis....however just as an input.... I rent my home in AU to 3 pilots. We had a chat when I was briefly in AU. They used technical terms but the gist was....in certain weather conditions, water droplets are pushed upward at incredible speed. Less speed they hit plane as ice and just bounce off. In some instances the are still droplets of water and cling to aircraft. They then turn into ice. This process continues. Also this very good aircraft is controlled very much by computer system. They then send all conflicting messages etc. The lads mentioned that this happened with a famous air crash. Think it was air France.All this is second hand knowledge. Just found it interesting. I have zero background in aeronautics.If you have sore donk pm me

It was Air France 447 & exactly some of what I refer to many times. The AF447 crash is a really good example of inexperience not identifying with a basic condition of flight 'aerodynamic stall' . It's also a good example of Automation gone crazy.Bring back Cables and flight controls, or at least give pilots plenty of opportunities to use the ones they have. No go check airline sops about the manual flying of aircraft.

In AF447 final report show a lot of mistake from crew, first one no apply false IAS procedure, second pilot on command no proceed correctly with stall at high altitude... The FO and the second pilot were not enough training in this condition of flight. Captain was not the competence to pilot this day due to lack of rest...... BEA report :

• temporary inconsistency between the measured speeds, likely as a result of the obstruction of the pitot tubes by ice crystals, causing autopilot disconnection and reconfiguration to alternate law;
• the crew made inappropriate control inputs that destabilized the flight path;
• the crew failed to follow appropriate procedure for loss of displayed airspeed information;
• the crew were late in identifying and correcting the deviation from the flight path;
• the crew lacked understanding of the approach to stall;
• the crew failed to recognize that the aircraft had stalled and consequently did not make inputs that would have made it possible to recover from the stall.

Exactly.

[easybullet3]

Dodgy.

More aspects than 1 make these budget airlines dodgy......meanwhile dummies keep linng up to fly with them....you save a bit of cash though.

Good point - best you fly Air France.....

is this a Joke ?

Air France has a BAD safety record!!! they are an old (Aging) airline. nothing special... they had at least 4 or 5 MAJOR incidents (crashes) in since 1996 (the year that Asia Airlines started operations).

This is Air Asia's FIRST INCIDENT since they started in 1996.

Air Asia is Statistically a VERY GOOD airline. it has planes are 'on average' about 4 or 5 years old !!!

Air France's planes are 'on average' about 11 or 12 years old !!!

i assume you are joking about Air France being safer !!

Link to Air Asia's incidents:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirAsia#External_links

Link to Air France's incidents:

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

after comparing the safety records of these two companies, you will probably want to keep away from Air France. Lol

(by the way,, I dont work from Air Asia!!! Lol.. i just know that Air Asia is a pretty good airline). better than Nok air (who have not so well trained pilots,, and Bangkok Air that is just a corrupt Airline, trying to be high-so, and Thai Airways with Low Safety Standards and tonnes of crashes).

Air Asia is by far one of the safest airlines in this region of the world.

Edited January 4, 2015 by easybullet3

[neverdie]

@mudcrab,

I'm being called every name under the sun without mentioning that lol.

I've never met so many people who are at best SLF from the y cabin that think they know everything. One guy dismiss P2F as a 'conspiracy theory' and another high class y traveller reckons I know expletive expletive.

These are guys that have never been inside a cockpit yet alone driven a wb a/c. No wonder the trolly dolly's do their heads in with them

[tom21]

On reading this thread I am under the impression that the plane was flying without permission. Did this cause the crash or was the pilot informed that he did not have permission and to stop flying

[ChrisY1]

If ATC cleared them , then they had permission , trying to pass the buck ?

As Indonesia has mentioned....the airport management at Surabuya may, or should, have some answers as to why AA scheduled a Sunday flight.......ATC manage flight control usually from a manifest of flights for a given period

[ABCer]

Not a word understood from our 'experts'.

However, reading into OP - "AirAsia flight QZ8501 was not cleared to fly"

I cannot see how The Airport could allow them to leave or to take off?

This reflects more badly on Indonesia than AirAsia pilots, aircraft or Management.

Somebody please correct me...

On the other hand the obvious finger pointing is inevitable.

The loss of life is tragic. But it is much more soothing to know that accident took place

unlike the cases with two Malaysian jets - one a "MYSTERY" the other one shot down by not Russians, not Ukrainians, not Rebels!

Fishy smell all over.

Edited January 4, 2015 by ABCer

[outboard]

Airlines, air traffic control, air traffic licencing and basically anything to do with flying aircraft operate on UTC !

this flight took off @ 5:35am(WIB (Western Indonesian Time) UTC/GMT +7 hours) which makes it 10:35 Saturday UTC

[DavoTheGun]

The majority of the guys flying these aircraft have forgotten how to really fly, they only know how to fly a Computer,,once out of there regular they are lost.

This stuff about no permission is a red herring, they all need refresher courses, look at the instruments, T&B. ASI. AH. that is all you need then the seat of your pants, then mother nature can do her worst and you will survive.

Wind Shear can be very difficult, but if you have enough height you should be OK.

I have 20,000 plus hours in many Aircraft, I flew an MU2 through a Cyclone, from Vanuatu, got back to sydney with almost all of Virtical Stabiliser gone., because I only worried about flying the plane!

Saves 19 Souls.

[F4UCorsair]

If ATC cleared them , then they had permission , trying to pass the buck ?

Lack of understanding evident here. An airline must have approval from the Civil Aviation Authorities in both departure and destination countries to operate RPT (Regular Public Transport) flights.

Air Traffic Control is a separate issue entirely, and an airline could (and did) file a flight plan for a flight that did not have regulatory approval, effectively a non existent flight. It was probably filed as the same flight number as that operating on other days, using the same overfly clearance number, so air traffic controllers would be unaware ( nor care, probably), that this particular flight was not 'approved'.

This, however, had nothing to do with the crash, other than if it han't taken off because there was no regulatory approval, it wouldn't have crashed, and that woild be drawing a long bow.

Edited January 4, 2015 by F4UCorsair

[Sirpia]

In terms of clearance.

Either:

Someone was asleep.

Someone couldn't give a fog.

Someone was paid to allow it.

Or all three.

That's SEA. People can pull their hair out all they want. There will be big sincere sounding promises and then back to normal the following week.

[Sirpia]

I have 20,000 plus hours in many Aircraft, I flew an MU2 through a Cyclone, from Vanuatu, got back to sydney with almost all of Virtical Stabiliser gone., because I only worried about flying the plane!

Saves 19 Souls.

You hero.

[Moonlover]

I really do think that this business of not having a license for the day in question is being blown up out of all proportion. And it appears that the Singapore CAA is even disputing that now.

It is certainly not true that this flight was being operating without proper clearance. A flight-plan must be submitted for every passenger plane that takes to the skies. That flight-plan must include the authorized slot times for the departure and arrival airports. No flight can be released until the flight-plan has been approved.

Suspicion is also being thrown up regarding the timing of the flight. As this was not one the airline’s scheduled days, it is very likely that their usual slot times would not have been available, therefor they would have had to bid for alternative times. I see nothing sinister in this at all.

This unfortunate accident appears to be very similar to that of the Air France crash a few years ago. The answer lies at the bottom of the Java Sea and until the recorders are recovered and analysed, everything is pure, usually misinformed, speculation.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Scott

[luk AJ]

When I board a flight I always think the pilots nor the crew have death wishes. I am sure they only fly when they are convinced all safety rules are in place right? Nevertheless accidents happen...

[wilcopops]

I have steadfastly refused to fly air asia for several years now. this was because of the way they treated a planeload of passengers - including myself in Singapore.

I felt that their lack of concern for their customers; high-handed, off- handed and even under-handed, making us stay overnight in the airport after cancelling a flight was unacceptable.

It occurred to me that a airline prepared to treat its "cargo" like this was in the end going to take unnecessary shortcuts at the expense of their customers ..... looks like I may have been right.

I had the same experience in Singapore with Jetstar. Then I had to book and pay for a hotel as well.

Any Ryanair stories guys?

Deal with it Wilco....that's what you get with budget airlines...read the fine print.

You are the cargo.

I think i made it perfectly clear how I dealt with it.

BTW - as Air Asia deliberately refused to tell us what was happening we were not able to get a room for the night....this would have put them outside their delay envelope and they would have had to compensate us more than just a bowl of noodles.

Edited January 4, 2015 by wilcopops