Jump to content

Air Asia X flight loses contact with ground control

EnterTheVoid

By EnterTheVoid
in Chit Chat

 Share

Recommended Posts

Raghav_12 Newbie

Raghav_12

Posted
Posted

AirAsia Jet That Crashed Faced Foul-Weather Risks http://www.wsj.com/articles/missing-airasia-jet-faced-foul-weather-risks-1419857452

Plane Flew Through Region Known for Severe December and January Storms AirAsia Flight 8501 may have been affected by turbulent, cumulonimbus clouds in its path. WSJ’s Ramy Inocencio speaks with Hong Kong Obervatory’s Cheung Ping about the weather when radar contact was lost. HONG KONG—The AirAsia jetliner that crashed Sunday was flying in a region known for severe thunderstorms during December and January, the wettest periods of the year in Indonesia, posing frequent risks for the pilots, according to aviation and weather experts. Among the risks posed to planes flying this route: heavy turbulence, lightning, wind shear and icing. Many experts said the storms in the region on Sunday at the time the plane went missing were likely strong enough to produce some of these effects. “These storm clouds can be very powerful,” said Cheung Ping, scientific officer at the Hong Kong Observatory. “The route usually has thunderstorms,” he said, because of its proximity to the equator. “Those flying that route know that.” The Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501, with 162 people on board, lost contact with air-traffic control less than an hour into its flight to Singapore from Surabaya on Sunday after requesting to climb higher to avoid bad weather, officials said. Indonesia’s weather agency said it had informed airlines of cumulonimbus clouds, which can cause severe thunderstorms, in the region before AirAsia’s departure. State-owned AirNav Indonesia, which provides air-navigation services, said the AirAsia plane took off at 5:32 a.m. local time. It said the airliner was cruising at 32,000 feet and at 6:12 a.m., the plane contacted traffic control at Jakarta’s airport to say it was moving left from the flight path and rising to 38,000 feet to avoid a cloud. At 6:16 a.m. the plane was still appearing on the radar, it said. At 6:18 a.m., it disappeared from radar. The frequency of storms in the skies along the route means it can be hard for pilots to avoid turbulence, said Desmond Ross, a pilot who has flown in the area before and is now a principal of an aviation-consulting business in Australia. “Those storms are quite violent at this time of year,” Mr. Ross said. “Anywhere you fly around that area you are going to strike these kinds of storms and monsoonal weather,” he said. For a pilot, averting storm clouds can be a dangerous maneuver, Mr. Ross said. “Did he hit downdrafts, updrafts, wind shears and all sorts of other things that can be combined with a massive thunderstorm?” he said. An official at Indonesia’s meteorological agency said it was slightly rainy in areas through which the plane was estimated to be flying, with thick cumulonimbus clouds as high as 45,000 feet. “In general, cumulonimbus is quite dangerous for aviation activities because it causes thunderstorms and heavy rain,” the official said. Tactics that pilots normally deploy include seeking to fly over or around a storm, or turning the plane back to its point of origin. Indonesia’s air-traffic control said it hadn’t received any requests from other airlines seeking flight-path deviations around the time that AirAsia made its request. Information is scarce about whether other airlines took alternative action in anticipation of the storm. Experts say airliners carry top-class radars that give good warning of advancing storms. Even in the face of severe weather, modern aircraft are built and designed to withstand extreme pulls and pressures and have radar to warn them. Pilots are routinely trained on how to avert dangerous storm clouds, and conditions in Southeast Asia are no worse than the severe weather experienced during a North American or European winter, said Greg Waldron, the Asia managing editor at industry publication Flightglobal. “The weather might have contributed to something that contributed to something. It’s a rare thing when one factor causes an air disaster, it’s usually a cascade of factors that add up to an air disaster,” Mr. Waldron said. Still, ascending a plane to clear a storm can be fraught with danger. If a pilot makes a mistake and gets sucked into the storm, it can be hard to recover, said Peter Marosszeky, an aviation expert and academic. He said what is known about the AirAsia flight indicated that the plane experienced a violent weather condition. “The pilot would have had very little chance of recovering from an extreme upset like that.” “The weather can throw a plane around like a cork in the air.” —Ben Otto and Gaurav Raghuvanshi contributed to this article.
Scary. It seems like same case as AF447. Pilot reacted to rough weather in wrong manner leading to catastrophic mistake. Pilots are more trained on simulators nowadays and this limits the capabilities of pilots in handling of planes manually when disengaged from auto-pilots.
gattaca Grand Master

gattaca

Posted
Posted
There were other planes in the area. So how did they manage to avoid the storm but the Air Asia flight didn't? Someone stuffed up big time.
There were not allowed to fly at a higher altitude because other were already flying high.
Raghav_12 Newbie

Raghav_12

Posted
Posted
There were other planes in the area. So how did they manage to avoid the storm but the Air Asia flight didn't? Someone stuffed up big time.
Wrong decision making/ Human Error combined with bad weather.
Number Grand Master

Number

Posted
Posted

According to reports the pilot made a steep ascend at high speed through the storm, which might have been beyond the limits of Airbus A320 and caused the aircraft to stall in the end.

 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...