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

[simondan]

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.

But mate, it was Air France (a good airline) with good pilots that went down in the Atlantic and what about QF32, an A380 with 3 captains and a co-pilot and a first officer. The captain is considered literally one of the best in the business. The plane is something else.
What is it the arabs say? Inshalla!!

I know all that brother & it's one of my exact points about automation and young pilots......good lads In Their own rights but have FEKK all stick experience.....& now they are dead and they took a whole pile of folk along with them. My retarded pet rabbit with the missing leg would of got thing out of a stall.....and my point about QF, which actually had 5 experienced and good pilots working on the job & even they were COMPLETELY OVER SATURATED with tasks....so imagine some poor commander battling away in the left hand seat while the guy in the RHS with 1000 hours and 2 minutes real stick time virtually sits and wstches or taps away on his <deleted> Facebook page. 55555

There should be minimum hours required for all captains of wide body a/c (industry wide) & min hrs for F.O. (Industry wide) & there should be mandatory manual flying hours for each pilot. Where less experienced crew are PF, there should be another fully qualified hrs man sitting alongside.

Scrap P2F & execute the dunce that invented it.

Any airline that penalises a pilot for missing a slot or not proceeding with a sector should be shut down.

And there's other things I can't be bothered going on with....it won't happen anyway.

Never forget All this other crap started when these budget wonders surfaced....they were the catalyst for the present state of affairs.

Anyway......it's like pissing in the wind....seriously. There's guys on here moaning about meal choice and how much airlines charge for baggage and I'm tapping away on a phone trying to raise general awareness and couldn't possibly spell the entire 25 years of the disaster onto the tvf forum only to have some t w a t whose never been past the y curtain halfway along the tube tell me I don't know crap about it.

Anyway, commercial aviation should be getting safer with technology and the reason many of these silly mistakes are happening is they seem to have lost the plot and forgotten that no matter how good their computers are that experienced pilots will plent of manual flying experience will ALWAYS be needed for those important moments when the computers go offline. Theyve forgotten that and down graded the importance of capable, experienced crew and their focusing on cheaper miles and cutting costs, just so bozo on the south side of the y curtain can get his flight $100 cheaper.

I bet you, you could pull a dozen old pilots in their 80ues and 90ies, throw them on a 777 & they could manually fly the thing to virtually anywhere in the world. Put some of these current day dipshits into a 707 & see how far they get..... THAT should have never been allowed to happen.

Anyway, adios, enjoy ur ride folks.....don't forget to buckle up and enjoy the view as your plane is driven into, woops I mean over the canyon.

Not sure any of that rant came out well....never mind. Kiss my arse, I'm right jack.

Neverdie - I m just an ignorant member of the flying public who has no idea about these things.
But I do a lot of flying and I just know everytime I get in a plane I hope to hell everyone has and is doing their jobs properly. Its a major trust issue!

Anyway, I have no idea if youre right or deluded but I like your style!
Keep on fighting the good fight and dont let the <deleted><deleted> beat you down!

[F430murci]

Tiger Monkey

The expert was right when he said that it couldn't be from the Airbus. Turns out today that it was a wrecked ship.

Wow. Super disappointing. Bodies and small pieces floating. Did this thing disintegrate on the way down?

[khaosai]

Hopefully they find the flight data and cockpit voice recorder soon so to get a definitive answer on what caused an experienced crew to come unstuck. I don't have the answers and can speculate like everyone else. What I can offer is a professional input with as much accurate information as possible on the job and potential threats involved.

Weather may have played a part in the accident. Other aircraft in the region were close on 100 miles off track.

You can get ice crystal icing which is a fairly new phenomenon and is still not fully understood. It can happen in any part of the world but is more prevalent in tropical regions. The ice does not stick to the aircraft structure in any real form but can affect the temperature probes on the aircraft and also affect the parts of the engines which are not heated and protected by engine anti ice. This can lead to engine issues and/or total air temperature (TAT) probe issues. This may prevent the auto throttle of being able to maintain the desired speed. On the aircraft I fly we now have a specific checklist to cover this encounter.

You also have the potential for severe turbulence which may be related to thunderstorm activity or could occur in clear air. Pilots have a specific procedure on how to manage a severe turbulence encounter. If the aircraft is mishandled it could lead to loss of control. A high altitude stall could occur and needs a positive input to ensure recovery. The emphasis needs to be on a reduction of the angle of attack first and foremost.

Why no pan or mayday call ? It has all the hallmarks of something that developed quickly. Time will tell.

In an ideal world you would get the met briefing package from flight dispatch. If you know that might be a problem based on departure time then some prior prep at home via the Internet would give you an idea of the weather conditions to be expected. I can personally download the up to date flight plan, weather and Notam package I will need onto my ipad prior to leaving home.

Another source of information would be via air traffic control who will be able to provide at the very least the actual conditions at destination.

You also have the crews experience, particularly the captain who spent a career flying in that region and who would have a good awareness of the en route and destination weather to be expected for that time of the year.

Lastly, and assuming it's working, you have the onboard weather radar which gives you a real time picture of the weather up to 320 miles ahead of the aircraft.

[Daniel Ingalls]

THE PROBLEM I AM HAVING IS: When AirAsia requested permission to increase its altitude to fly over the storm,

why didn't the air controller contact the other planes in the area to increase their altitude so Airasia could of avoided this

whole scene and we wouldn't be discussing this tragic event!

[F430murci]

THE PROBLEM I AM HAVING IS: When AirAsia requested permission to increase its altitude to fly over the storm,

why didn't the air controller contact the other planes in the area to increase their altitude so Airasia could of avoided this

whole scene and we wouldn't be discussing this tragic event!

Getting hairy the closer you get to 40,000 feet. Planes can go that high, but the higher you go the closer the stall speed (minimum) and the critical mach (maximum) speed get resulting in a very small error of margin between stall speed and shock waves resulting in the wings losing lift. Traffic at 38,000 or 39,000 feet is about as high as it could safely go. Candidly, the storm clouds were 50,000 feet high so I doubt the requested increase would have made much of a difference if this weather related.

[ezzra]

The magnitude stuff ups of the doomed flight is getting unraveled by the hour.... now it come to light that

the pilots didn't get the Met report before departure, so they took off not knowing what the weather

will be like on route relaying on their on board radar system, which to say, 'she'll be right mate

and we know what we're doing, we pilots'

as a private licensed pilot, we were told time and time again that there is no substitute to information

and weather information most of all, so no wonder that catastrophes do happened when cockpit

crew get complacent and careless...

Edited January 5, 2015 by ezzra

[outboard]

THE PROBLEM I AM HAVING IS: When AirAsia requested permission to increase its altitude to fly over the storm,

why didn't the air controller contact the other planes in the area to increase their altitude so Airasia could of avoided this

whole scene and we wouldn't be discussing this tragic event!

What ATC did is not 100% clear from the reports we have been getting, some reports say they immediately approved the flight deviation to the left but not the increase in altitude others say they just flat out denied the request. several people on this forum with experience in commercial flight (either pilots or ATC) have suggested that the pilot still has a certain amount of autonomy and could have made the deviation without ATC approval using his own judgement (closest traffic was 100Km away) based on his crafts detection equipment.

Deviating several other aircraft would have taken time and I am not sure it is within ATC's parameters to do in this situation (I trust that other TVF members will correct me some of them might actually know)

The problem of trying to work out what happened using logic is that we need facts to start with and unfortunately all we have is news reporters interpretation of stories told to them by people that may or may not be sharing facts in language that may or may not be understood by those reporters, reporters tend to interpret information in a way that makes good headlines and sells advertising.

For instance, reporters made a big deal about the pilot requesting "an UNUSUAL deviation from his FLIGHT PLAN" in ordinary language this seems to be saying asking for a deviation that was something strange that should never happen, where as in actual fact any deviation asked for gets logged as unusual and the word really has no significance.

other reports of the plane climbing "at a rate beyond the aircraft's capability" suggest that the pilot was pointing the nose up and trying to climb faster then he should have been, when closer examination of what was actually said was the plane does not have the ability to climb that fast on its own and either someone bolted on a couple of rocket motors to it or it experienced a massive updraft or the leaked information is false

working on assumptions to logically work out what happened is noting more then speculation equivalent to the conspiracy theories floating about (those theories are based on information that may or may not be correct and the people touting them believe them to be correct) but what the heck I'll have a go -:

assumptions -:

The pilot and cockpit crew was competent.

The aircraft they have found is flight QZ8501

The aircraft was not deliberately crashed

The radar information of sudden and incredible climb rate and then decent rate is correct

The pilot would have avoided massive thunder storms

clear air turbulence can occur in this location

something caused the plane to climb (increase altitude) at 9000 ft per min, and slow down by 100 knots, and then fall faster then a plane could fall with normal air resistance, the rate of climb was so fast that it was measurable in terms of fighter jet performance, while this was happening there was no communication from the aircraft.

This happened shortly after the request for course alteration and so before the plane had reached the storm cell they were trying to avoid, aircraft weather radar shows them about 340miles ahead so that would give them somewhere between 20 and 40 mins however the weather radar can not actually see turbulence, it can only see radar reflective objects in that turbulence so while it can see updrafts in a storm cell due to the water moving it can't see clear air turbulence.

In a fighter jet when pilots are performing manoeuvres such as these they are wearing a special suit that inflates to inhibit the bodies blood flow so they don't black out in addition to the suit they also perform some breathing and muscle clenching as the suit on its own is not enough

as commercial aircraft are not designed nor expected to perform these manoeuvres and the pilots don't wear the special suits they would have blacked out and any manual corrective manoeuvres required would not have been possible the plane would have driven it's self straight into the sea with no one on board aware of what happened

Edited January 5, 2015 by outboard

[outboard]

The magnitude stuff ups of the doomed flight is getting unraveled by the hour.... now it come to light that

the pilots didn't get the Met report before departure, so they took off not knowing what the weather

will be like on route relaying on their on board radar system, which to say, 'she'll be right mate

and we know what we're doing, we pilots'

as a private licensed pilot, we were told time and time again that there is no substitute to information

and weather information most of all, so no wonder that catastrophes do happened when cockpit

crew get complacent and careless...

nah that one has already been debunked , the pilot had weather information

[Don Aleman]

I am not sure Air Asia, ( 49 % interest in Air Asia Indonesia), should be taking all the flak as I believe the crew/control tower and possibly the plane itself were under the control of Air Asia Indonesia ! Further to that,Indonesian airlines have been barred, ( long before their association with Air Asia ), from entering any EU nation and .... the United States. It is rumored that this barring was for questionable aircraft maintenance and crew training !

[arunsakda]

Questions of route authority, whether they were allowed to fly on Sunday, or a particular time of time of day will be found to be incidental.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[F4UCorsair]

There's a LOT of uninformed/misinformed comment here about this incident.

There are a couple of professional pilots who post here, so most would be well advised to read their posts. TV members can also access PPRuNe, www.pprune.org a forum for professional pilots, although others are permitted to be members. There will be far more informed comment there than on TV.

Edited January 7, 2015 by F4UCorsair

[F4UCorsair]

THE PROBLEM I AM HAVING IS: When AirAsia requested permission to increase its altitude to fly over the storm,

why didn't the air controller contact the other planes in the area to increase their altitude so Airasia could of avoided this

whole scene and we wouldn't be discussing this tragic event!

Not that simple DI.

This is an area of high density air traffic, and I may be wrong, but probably not all covered by ground based radar, so 'procedural separation' is required, up to 20 miles laterally, and 1000 feet vertically, 2000 feet vertically if crews are reporting turbulence. Add the complication of some aircraft already being at their maximum altitude due to weight, and time to coordinate such level changes for several aircraft. It's not as simple as asking and receiving in many cases. Over central Australia, no problem, over SE Asia, Europe and the US, it can be a major problem.

Air Traffic Controllers facilitate pilot requests, and don't maliciously deny them, particularly when severe turbulence is reported.

Edited January 9, 2015 by F4UCorsair

[MrWorldwide]

Tried to find the most recent of the threads on the crash - this will have to suffice. It seems that the Indonesian military has decided to stop looking for more bodies or trying to raise the aircraft fuselage. Personally, I dont have a problem with what happens to my body after I'm dead, but I appreciate the many of their loved ones will feel differently. At this stage, I dont know if the Indonesians have given a final count of the number of bodies retrieved at the crash site, but Wikipedia does seem to have a timeline for the various stages in the recovery effort.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia_AirAsia_Flight_8501#Wreckage

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/indonesian-military-ends-hunt-for-airasia-victims/story-fnizu68q-1227198945509

INDONESIA’S military has halted its recovery efforts for the crashed AirAsia plane, including attempts to locate more bodies and raise the fuselage from the Java Sea, an official said Tuesday.

The Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency, however, said it would continue looking for victims with its own ships and helicopters.

Rear Admiral Widodo, head of the military’s search and rescue task force, said the decision to withdraw was made after four days of unsuccessful attempts to raise the fuselage. He said three warships and two military helicopters were being removed.

He apologised to the families of the victims for being unable to retrieve all the bodies.

[Moonlover]

Tried to find the most recent of the threads on the crash - this will have to suffice. It seems that the Indonesian military has decided to stop looking for more bodies or trying to raise the aircraft fuselage. Personally, I dont have a problem with what happens to my body after I'm dead, but I appreciate the many of their loved ones will feel differently. At this stage, I dont know if the Indonesians have given a final count of the number of bodies retrieved at the crash site, but Wikipedia does seem to have a timeline for the various stages in the recovery effort.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia_AirAsia_Flight_8501#Wreckage

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/indonesian-military-ends-hunt-for-airasia-victims/story-fnizu68q-1227198945509

INDONESIA’S military has halted its recovery efforts for the crashed AirAsia plane, including attempts to locate more bodies and raise the fuselage from the Java Sea, an official said Tuesday.

The Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency, however, said it would continue looking for victims with its own ships and helicopters.

Rear Admiral Widodo, head of the military’s search and rescue task force, said the decision to withdraw was made after four days of unsuccessful attempts to raise the fuselage. He said three warships and two military helicopters were being removed.

He apologised to the families of the victims for being unable to retrieve all the bodies.

According top the latest BBC report, the search team does not think there are any more bodies inside the fuselage. It is also becoming very risky to continue with the recovery with divers suffering from decompression sickness. Thankfully they have both the data recorders, so I doubt that there is anything more to learn as to what caused this accident by continuing to recover the wreckage.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-30997992

[Chicog]

Tried to find the most recent of the threads on the crash - this will have to suffice. It seems that the Indonesian military has decided to stop looking for more bodies or trying to raise the aircraft fuselage. Personally, I dont have a problem with what happens to my body after I'm dead, but I appreciate the many of their loved ones will feel differently. At this stage, I dont know if the Indonesians have given a final count of the number of bodies retrieved at the crash site, but Wikipedia does seem to have a timeline for the various stages in the recovery effort.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia_AirAsia_Flight_8501#Wreckage

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/indonesian-military-ends-hunt-for-airasia-victims/story-fnizu68q-1227198945509

INDONESIA’S military has halted its recovery efforts for the crashed AirAsia plane, including attempts to locate more bodies and raise the fuselage from the Java Sea, an official said Tuesday.

The Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency, however, said it would continue looking for victims with its own ships and helicopters.

Rear Admiral Widodo, head of the military’s search and rescue task force, said the decision to withdraw was made after four days of unsuccessful attempts to raise the fuselage. He said three warships and two military helicopters were being removed.

He apologised to the families of the victims for being unable to retrieve all the bodies.

According top the latest BBC report, the search team does not think there are any more bodies inside the fuselage. It is also becoming very risky to continue with the recovery with divers suffering from decompression sickness. Thankfully they have both the data recorders, so I doubt that there is anything more to learn as to what caused this accident by continuing to recover the wreckage.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-30997992

It's not that deep, why can't they confirm that with an ROV?

[Basil B]

With ROV's the will be a risk of entanglement, probably the same with divers using surface feed air, their is no limit to the time divers can spend under water, just the greater the time and depth the longer the have to decompress, so may have to spend a lot of time in a decompression chambers, some aspects of technical diving like enriched air and trimix can reduce the the deco time.

I think the fact that the military is pulling out is they have egg on their faces, two attempts to raise the fuselage with equipment failure seems the whole thing has been handled in a very incompetent way due to infighting within the government and military factions.

Unless there are many bodies in the fuselage I doubt they will find many more, I presume the task of recovering the fuselage may well be left to commercial salvager's.

[Chicog]

If they can get ROVs in and out of the Titanic at 3800m I really don't see why they can't sneak one around an aircraft fuselage at 30m.

But reading more I find that they have been using ROVs so perhaps it just wasn't made clear in the report.

[outboard]

If they can get ROVs in and out of the Titanic at 3800m I really don't see why they can't sneak one around an aircraft fuselage at 30m.

But reading more I find that they have been using ROVs so perhaps it just wasn't made clear in the report.

what is the speed of the current at the titanic site ?

[Moonlover]

With ROV's the will be a risk of entanglement, probably the same with divers using surface feed air, their is no limit to the time divers can spend under water, just the greater the time and depth the longer the have to decompress, so may have to spend a lot of time in a decompression chambers, some aspects of technical diving like enriched air and trimix can reduce the the deco time.

I think the fact that the military is pulling out is they have egg on their faces, two attempts to raise the fuselage with equipment failure seems the whole thing has been handled in a very incompetent way due to infighting within the government and military factions.

Unless there are many bodies in the fuselage I doubt they will find many more, I presume the task of recovering the fuselage may well be left to commercial salvager's.

'There is no limit to the time divers can spend under water' !!!!!!!!

What are you talking about Basil? A diver working at 30 meters on a 32% Nitrox mix (the ideal mix for this depth) has only about 20 minutes 'bottom time' before going into a decompression situation. The task that these guys faced was extremely hazardous and I think far from 'having egg on their faces' as you put it, I believe they made an heroic effort in very difficult circumstances.

And just for the record, Trimix DOES NOT reduce deco time.

[Basil B]

Divers can live under water for days.... read up saturation diving...

Fact is all recreational divers are taught to dive within limits that do not require decompression stops on the accent other than the 3 minutes at 3 meters safety stop (OK I am PADI trained, other training/certification organisations may differ on this), professional/commercial divers are trained to exceed these limits.

"A diver working at 30 meters on a 32% Nitrox mix (the ideal mix for this depth) has only about 20 minutes 'bottom time' before going into a decompression situation."

• EAN 32 (Nitrox 32%) No Deco Limit at 30m = 30 minutes
• Max safe mix (Oxygen Partial Pressure of 1.4) for 30 meters = EAN 35 (Nitrox 35%) [you get a few more minutes bottom time]

Some risks diving at depth:

• Decompression Sickness (the bends), an illness affecting diver when they ascend caused by build up of nitrogen in the body, managed by reducing nitrogen in the gas mix (adding oxygen is the preferred method for recreational divers), and/or Deco stops on the ascent or use of decompression/Hyperbaric chambers.
• Nitrogen Narcosis, as a PADI qualified deep diver I was trained to recognise and deal with this, risk can be reduced by reducing nitrogen in the gas mix.
• Oxygen Toxicity, This is the killer, we all need oxygen but in high concentration (normally in excess of 100% O² at more than 1.5 times as surface atmospheric pressure) it can cause an effect on the central nervous system, causing diver to lose control and drown.

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

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

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

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

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

http://www.cousteau.org/technology/conshelf-i-ii-iii/

Edited January 29, 2015 by Basil B

[F4UCorsair]

Basil B, don't use Wikipedia as your principal or sole reference. It's peer reviewed, and even you or I can change detail. Some of it is very reliable, and some of it is very unreliable.

[kingalfred]

Throw air asia out of Indonesia if the government sticks to its promise

[Camelot]

So the co-pilot from Martinique with 2,000 hours experience, was flying the plane throughout the ill-fated journey (BBC, CNN). Nothing unusual about that in normal circumstances,. As a passenger, though, I'd feel better knowing the Indonesian captain with 20,000 hours experience was at the controls while the plane was in acute distress.

[NeverSure]

So the co-pilot from Martinique with 2,000 hours experience, was flying the plane throughout the ill-fated journey (BBC, CNN). Nothing unusual about that in normal circumstances,. As a passenger, though, I'd feel better knowing the Indonesian captain with 20,000 hours experience was at the controls while the plane was in acute distress.

You're probably right but under some circumstances...

As the saying goes, you can have 20,000 hours experience, but it can be 1,000 hours 20 times, i.e. same ole without the depth and width of experience.

Also like a lot of things, some pilots are gifted and some, regardless of training or hours aren't really there.

"You can't teach good judgement."

"He was so busy panicking he forgot to fly the plane" can happen regardless of hours depending on the pilot's temperament.

Some pilots are naturals and very bright with good judgement and 2,000 hours, after all, is actually a lot of time if it's the right kind of time and if the guy is good.

2,000 hours is plenty of time to be able to recognize an impending stall and take corrective action UNLESS the air was so violently turbulent that the plane's control surfaces couldn't make corrections.

Edited January 30, 2015 by NeverSure

[F4UCorsair]

So the co-pilot from Martinique with 2,000 hours experience, was flying the plane throughout the ill-fated journey (BBC, CNN). Nothing unusual about that in normal circumstances,. As a passenger, though, I'd feel better knowing the Indonesian captain with 20,000 hours experience was at the controls while the plane was in acute distress.

The Captain can take over control at any time, so that's not a valid point. He should, and would, have been overseeing everything the copilot did.

[F4UCorsair]

I think we'll all find that there is more to this than simple pilot error.

It may well be a similar situation to the Air France crash where the pitot tubes froze over, and then the computer system received erroneous information. With an A320, the pilots fly the computer and the computer flys the aircraft (simplistic explanation), and the computer system won't action inputs that are unreasonable based on the information it has. If the pitot tubes were frozen, a possible result is that an increasing airspeed is fed to the computer system, so it pulls the nose up, or reduces thrust, to reduce the airspeed. Regardless of what the pilots do, that won't change, so it's possible that the aircraft was pitched up to an impossible angle, and the pilots were unable to control it.

That's speculation based on my knowledge of the A320, and that's not nearly as extensive as my knowledge of Boeing.

[arunsakda]

Reuters now reporting the Captain left his seat to pull the Circuit Breaker to the FAC (a flight control computer module which provides flight envelope protection among other things).

I'm not an Airbus guy but it would pulling the FAC CB not put the jet in the flight control mode known as "direct law" and disable the AP?

At speed and altitude (possible turbulence) the FO then quickly bolloxed it up and they were unable to recover.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/31/us-indonesia-airplane-idUSKBN0L404E20150131

Edited February 2, 2015 by arunsakda

[Jay Sata]

Imagine trying to ride a bucking bronco with a blindfold on.

The turbulence inside that storm cell would have been ten times worse.

The question is why with modern weather radar they flew in to it?

[F4UCorsair]

Weather radar is not fool proof, and a degree of interpretation is required. There wouldn't be many pilots who haven't been caught out by the weather radar at some stage of their careers, and had the hell frightened out of them.

There's an old saying.....weather doesn't break aircraft, pilots do, and inappropriate handling in severe turbulence can do just that, but I still contend that it's likely that there was a malfunction that caused the pilots (and computer system) to initiate the rapid climb, aided by severe updrafts in the storm cell/s.

Edited February 4, 2015 by F4UCorsair

[Moonlover]

Weather radar is not fool proof, and a degree of interpretation is required. There wouldn't be many pilots who haven't been caught out by the weather radar at some stage of their careers, and had the hell frightened out of them.

There's an old saying.....weather doesn't break aircraft, pilots do, and inappropriate handling in severe turbulence can do just that, but I still contend that it's likely that there was a malfunction that caused the pilots (and computer system) to initiate the rapid climb, aided by severe updrafts in the storm cell/s.

I do recall an accident, also an Airbus in 2001, not long after 9/11. The aircraft was taking off from New York and got caught up in wake turbulence from a recently departed 747. The pilot repeatedly slammed the rudder left/right for about 20 seconds and over-stressed the vertical stabilizer. It broke off and the resulting crash killed over 250 people. Yes, aircraft are pretty tough, but they have their limits and it's often the pilots who screw up in situations like this. It's been mentioned here before and I agree with it. Pilots these days spend too much time watching the airplane fly itself!