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AirAsia plane with 162 on board missing en route to Singapore

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Bodies found in Indonesian waters where plane disappeared


By DEWI NURCAHYANI and ROBIN McDOWELL
Dec. 30, 2014 6:31 AM EST

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Commander of 1st Indonesian Air Force Operational Command Rear Marshall Dwi Putranto, right, shows airplane parts and a suitcase found floating on the water near the site where AirAsia Flight 8501 disappeared, during a press conference at the airbase in Pangkalan Bun, Central Borneo, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2014. Bodies and debris seen floating in Indonesian waters Tuesday, painfully ended the mystery of AirAsia Flight 8501, which crashed into the Java Sea and was lost to searchers for more than two days. The writings on the suitcase reads

PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia (AP) — Bloated bodies and debris seen floating in Indonesian waters Tuesday painfully ended the mystery of AirAsia Flight 8501, which crashed into the Java Sea with 162 people aboard and took more than two days to find, despite a massive international search.

The low-cost carrier vanished Sunday halfway through a two-hour flight between Surabaya, Indonesia and Singapore after encountering storm clouds.

On Tuesday, with crews in dozens of planes, helicopters and ships looking for the aircraft, searchers discovered what appeared to be a life jacket and an emergency exit door. Part of the plane's interior, including an oxygen tank, was brought to the nearest town, Pangkalan Bun, along with a bright blue plastic suitcase that appeared to be in perfect condition.

First Adm. Sigit Setiayanta, Naval Aviation Center commander at Surabaya Air Force base, told reporters six corpses were spotted off Borneo island and about 16 kilometers (10 miles) from the plane's last known coordinates. The bodies and wreckage were found about 160 kilometers (100 miles) from land.

Rescue workers were shown on local TV being lowered on ropes from a hovering helicopter to retrieve bodies. Efforts were hindered by 2-meter-high (6-foot) waves and strong winds, National Search and Rescue Director SB Supriyadi said, adding that several bodies were later picked up by a navy ship.

Supriyadi said he saw what appeared to be more wreckage under the water, which was clear and a relatively shallow 20 to 30 meters (65 to 100 feet).

Indonesian television showed a half-naked body of a man whose shirt partially covered his head. The images sent a spasm of pain through family members watching together in a waiting room at the Surabaya airport.

Many screamed and wailed uncontrollably, breaking down into tears while they squeezed each other. One middle-aged man collapsed and had to be carried out on a stretcher.

AirAsia group CEO Tony Fernandes tweeted, "My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ 8501. On behalf of AirAsia my condolences to all. Words cannot express how sorry I am." By evening he had flown back to Surabaya to meet passengers' families.

Pilots of the jet had been worried about the weather on Sunday and sought permission to climb above threatening clouds, but were denied due to heavy air traffic. Minutes later, the jet was gone from the radar without issuing a distress signal.

The suspected crash caps an astonishingly tragic year for air travel in Southeast Asia, and Malaysia in particular. Malaysia-based AirAsia's loss comes on top of the still-unsolved disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in March with 239 people aboard, and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July over Ukraine, which killed all 298 passengers and crew.

Nearly all the passengers and crew are Indonesians, who are frequent visitors to Singapore, particularly on holidays.

Ifan Joko, 54, said that despite the tragic news he is still hoping for a miracle. His brother, Charlie Gunawan, along with his wife, their three children and two other family members, were traveling to Singapore on the plane to ring in the New Year.

"I know the plane has crashed, but I cannot believe my brother and his family are dead," he said, wiping a tear. "... We still pray they are alive."

Several countries are helping Indonesia retrieve the wreckage and the passengers.

The United States on Tuesday announced it was sending the USS Sampson destroyer, joining at least 30 ships, 15 aircraft and seven helicopters in the search for the jet, said Indonesia's Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo.

A Chinese frigate was also on the way, while Singapore said it was sending two underwater beacon detectors to try to detect pings from the plane's all-important cockpit voice and flight data recorders. Malaysia, Australia and Thailand also are involved in the search.


 

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AirAsia Indonesia Flight QZ8501 Update (as of 30 December 2014 18:00 PM (GMT+7)

December 30, 2014 at 3:21am

AIRASIA INDONESIA FLIGHT QZ8501
AS OF 30 DECEMBER 2014 18:00 PM LT (GMT+7)

SURABAYA, 30TH DECEMBER 2014 – AirAsia Indonesia regrets to inform that The National Search and Rescue Agency Republic of Indonesia (BASARNAS) today confirmed that the debris found earlier today is indeed from QZ8501, the flight that had lost contact with air traffic control on the morning of 28th.

The debris of the aircraft was found in the Karimata Strait around 110 nautical miles south west from Pangkalan Bun. The aircraft was an Airbus A320-200 with the registration number PK-AXC. There were 155 passengers on board, with 137 adults, 17 children and 1 infant. Also on board were 2 pilots, 4 cabin crews and one engineer.

At the present time, search and rescue operations are still in progress and further investigation of the debris found at the location is still underway. AirAsia Indonesia employees have been sent to the site and will be fully cooperating with BASARNAS, National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC), and relevant authorities on the investigation.

Sunu Widyatmoko, Chief Executive Officer of AirAsia Indonesia said: “We are sorry to be here today under these tragic circumstances. We would like to extend our sincere sympathies to the family and friends of those on board QZ8501. Our sympathies also go out to the families of our dear colleagues.”

Tony Fernandes, Group Chief Executive Officer of AirAsia added: “I am absolutely devastated. This is a very difficult moment for all of us at AirAsia as we await further developments of the search and rescue operations but our first priority now is the wellbeing of the family members of those onboard QZ8501.”

AirAsia Indonesia will be inviting family members to Surabaya, where a dedicated team of care providers will be assigned to each family to ensure that all of their needs are met. Counsellors, religious and spiritual personnel have also been invited to the family center to provide any necessary services.

Further information will be released as soon as it becomes available. An emergency call centre has been established and available for families seeking information. Family members of QZ8501, please contact:

Malaysia: +60 3 21795959

Indonesia: +62 2129270811

Singapore: +65 63077688

Korea: 007 98142069940

Our thoughts and prayers remain with the families and friends of our passengers and colleagues on board QZ8501.


 

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Bodies, debris from missing AirAsia plane pulled from sea off Indonesia


By Gayatri Suroyo and Adriana Nina Kusuma
JAKARTA Tue Dec 30, 2014 7:10am EST

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A search and rescue worker prepares to load body bags onto a flight to Kalimantan in Pangkal Pinang, Bangka December 30, 2014. REUTERS-Darren Whiteside

(Reuters) - Indonesian rescuers searching for an AirAsia plane carrying 162 people pulled bodies and wreckage from the sea off the coast of Borneo on Tuesday, prompting relatives of those on board watching TV footage to break down in tears.

Indonesia AirAsia's Flight QZ8501, an Airbus A320-200, lost contact with air traffic control early on Sunday during bad weather on a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

The navy said 40 bodies had been recovered. The plane has yet to be found.

"My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ8501," airline boss Tony Fernandes tweeted. "On behalf of AirAsia, my condolences to all. Words cannot express how sorry I am."

The airline said in a statement that it was inviting family members to Surabaya, "where a dedicated team of care providers will be assigned to each family to ensure that all of their needs are met".

Pictures of floating bodies were broadcast on television and relatives of the missing already gathered at a crisis center in Surabaya wept with heads in their hands. Several people collapsed in grief and were helped away.

"You have to be strong," the mayor of Surabaya, Tri Rismaharini, said as she comforted relatives. "They are not ours, they belong to God."

A navy spokesman said a plane door, oxygen tanks and one body had been recovered and taken away by helicopter for tests.

"The challenge is waves up to three meters high," Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters, adding that the search operation would go on all night. He declined to answer questions on whether any survivors had been found.

About 30 ships and 21 aircraft from Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and the United States have been involved in the search.

The plane, which did not issue a distress signal, disappeared after its pilot failed to get permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather because of heavy air traffic, officials said.

It was traveling at 32,000 feet (9,753 meters) and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet, officials said earlier.

Pilots and aviation experts said thunderstorms, and requests to gain altitude to avoid them, were not unusual in that area.

The Indonesian pilot was experienced and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, the airline said.

The aircraft had accumulated about 23,000 flight hours in some 13,600 flights, according to Airbus.

Online discussion among pilots has centered on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled.

CLUES WHEN THINGS GO WRONG

The plane, whose engines were made by CFM International, co-owned by General Electric and Safran of France, lacked real-time engine diagnostics or monitoring, a GE spokesman said.

Such systems are mainly used on long-haul flights and can provide clues to airlines and investigators when things go wrong.

Three airline disasters involving Malaysian-affiliated carriers in less than a year have dented confidence in the country's aviation industry and spooked travelers across the region.

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 went missing on March 8 on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board and has not been found. On July 17, the same airline's Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

Bizarrely, an AirAsia plane from Manila skidded off and overshot the runway on landing at Kalibo in the central Philippines on Tuesday. No one was hurt.

On board Flight QZ8501 were 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia and Britain. The co-pilot was French.

U.S. law enforcement and security officials said passenger and crew lists were being examined but nothing significant had turned up and the incident was regarded as an unexplained accident.

Indonesia AirAsia is 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia.

The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002.

(Additional reporting by Fergus Jensen, Wilda Asmarini, Charlotte Greenfield, Fransiska Nangoy, Cindy Silviana, Kanupriya Kapoor, Michael Taylor, Nilufar Rizki and Siva Govindasamy in JAKARTA/SURABAYA, Al-Zaquan Amer Hamzah and Praveen Menon in KUALA LUMPUR, Saeed Azhar, Rujun Shen and Anshuman Daga in SINGAPORE, Jane Wardell in SYDNEY, Tim Hepher in PARIS and Mark Hosenball, David Brunnstrom and Lesley Wroughton in WASHINGTON; Writing by Dean Yates and Robert Birsel; Editing by Nick Macfie)


 

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Critics ask how AirAsia jetliner went missing in age of GPS

By Alwyn Scott
NEW YORK Mon Dec 29, 2014 7:21pm EST

(Reuters) - Air travel advocates are demanding global aviation authorities explain how an AirAsia jetliner with 162 people aboard got lost at a time when satellites and webcams monitor society's every move.

"It should be impossible for an airliner to go missing" in an age when people can track their phones and cars to within a few feet, said Paul Hudson, president of Flyersrights.org and a member of a U.S. Federal Aviation Authority rulemaking advisory committee.

For two days rescuers have been unable to locate wreckage from the AirAsia Flight QZ8501, an Airbus A320 that was built in 2008 and last serviced in November, which likely did not fly far from its last radar sighting.

The technology exists for more closely pinpointing the location of the flight moments after it vanished on Sunday from radar screens, tracking experts say, and it would have helped narrow the vast search area in the Java Sea. But those systems are not fully deployed.

Global air-traffic control systems are in various stages of upgrade from radar to GPS ground and satellite navigation amid disagreements between airlines, governments and regulators about standards, costs and recommended implementation deadlines.

Hudson's group complains that failures going back more than a decade have led to many recommendations but little change in how planes are monitored. The group wants regulators to require better tracking.

Kevin Mitchell, founder and chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, an advocacy group for corporate travel departments, said the inability to quickly locate planes would likely have a "chilling effect" on travelers.

"We're pressing for making tracking a higher priority" for regulators, he said.

'AT LEAST A DECADE AWAY'

Charles Leocha, chairman of Travelers United, another advocacy group, predicted that despite the increased urgency, "a solution is at least a decade away" because of industry reluctance to incur costs and the difficulty setting equipment standards.

Better tracking and real-time flight-data monitoring became urgent issues after Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 went missing in March with 239 people on board, possibly flying for hours on autopilot as a "ghost plane" until its fuel ran out. It is thought to have crashed in a remote part of the Indian Ocean.

Its disappearance prompted the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency, to set up a task force led by the International Air Transport Association on tracking systems.

IATA's working group, representing airlines, pilots, air traffic controllers and airplane makers, already has agreed aircraft should be tracked to the nearest nautical mile.

In December the task force recommended a deadline of 12 months for deploying existing tracking systems, but IATA board members vetoed that timetable, saying it may prove impractical, stopping what was seen as the best chance of prompt action.

The AirAsia flight had a flight-tracking system known as ADS-B that the FlightRadar24 website used to publish its flight path. Ground-based air traffic controllers had radar data that showed the plane disappeared at 6:17 am local time on Sunday (2317 GMT).

"Clearly something happened where it went off the radar screen and they weren't able to fix a last location of the aircraft," said Don Thoma, chief executive of Aireon, a unit of Iridium Communications that is developing a satellite-based tracking system.

ICAO said on Monday it was premature to comment on AirAsia.

But Teuku Faizasyah, Indonesia's ambassador to Canada and its permanent representative to the ICAO, when asked what the organization could do, told Reuters: "It's a tough question. This involves private companies ... They may need to add some instruments that are very expensive."

(Reporting by Alwyn Scott in New York, Allison Lampert in Montreal, Allison Martell in Toronto and Tim Hepher in Paris; Editing by Howard Goller)


 

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AirAsia crash victims found: At least 40 bodies from doomed jet are recovered from the Java Sea

  • Dozens of bodies spotted floating in the sea off coast of Borneo Island
  • At least 40 bodies recovered from the water by Indonesian naval vessel
  • Officials have now confirmed wreckage is from AirAsia flight 8501
  • Local television showed at least one bloated corpse floating in water
  • Footage caused relatives watching live news stream to collapse in grief
  • AirAsia Airbus A320-200 vanished on Sunday with 162 people aboard
By John Hall and Belinda Robinson for MailOnline and Sarah Dean and Heather Mcnab and Richard Shears and Louise Cheer and Frank Coletta for Daily Mail Australia
Published: 21:44 GMT, 29 December 2014 | Updated: 13:09 GMT, 30 December 2014

Rescue workers searching for the doomed AirAsia flight 8501 have recovered at least 40 bodies from the Java Sea, the Indonesian Navy has confirmed.

Scores of bodies were discovered alongside luggage, a plane door and an emergency slide in the water 100 miles off the coast of Borneo Island earlier today, following three days of searching.

Officials have confirmed that the bodies and debris found in the Java Sea off Indonesia are from flight 8501, and a naval spokesman said the rescuers remain 'very busy' retrieving the victims.

Before darkness fell in the area, search teams identified a shadow that they believe to be the plane's fuselage beneath the water, which is relatively shallow at just 160 feet at its deepest point. Many of the remaining 122 victims are thought likely to still be on board the aircraft.

The recovery of 40 bodies came as devastated relatives of AirAsia crash victims collapsed in grief and were taken to hospital after an Indonesian television station showed disturbing uncensored footage of the swollen corpses floating in the sea.

Images shown on a news channel showed at least one body floating in the water, causing the victims' relatives - who were watching live reports at crisis-centre at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya - to burst into tears, with some fainting and requiring hospital treatment.

The Airbus A320-200 was 42 minutes into its flight from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore on Sunday when it vanished with 162 people on board.

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Devastated relatives of AirAsia crash victims collapsed in grief and were taken to hospital after an Indonesian television station showed disturbing images of swollen bodies floating in the sea

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Images shown on Indonesian television showed at least one bloated corpse floating in the water

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Relatives of missing AirAsia passengers react to live news reports of bodies being found off the coast of Borneo Island. The group were watching at a crisis-centre set up at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya

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After the bodies were shown on live TV, victims' relatives screamed, wailed uncontrollably and broke down in tears. At least two people fainted and were carried out on stretchers to waiting ambulances

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Tragic: The flight went missing from radar at 6.18am local time - six minutes after last communication with air traffic control - while travelling from Indonesia to Singapore with 162 people on board. Search and rescue workers spotted a number of bodies and debris floating in the water this morning

Images on Indonesian television showed a half-naked bloated body bobbing in the sea. Search and rescue teams were lowered on ropes from a hovering helicopter to retrieve the corpses.

As family members of the plane's passengers sat together in a waiting room at Surabaya airport, they watched the graphic details on television.

Many screamed and wailed uncontrollably, breaking down in tears while they squeezed each other. At least two people fainted and were carried out on stretchers to waiting ambulances.

The chaotic scenes came after several pieces of red, white and black debris were spotted in the Java Sea near Borneo island.

The bodies were found in the Java Sea about six miles from Flight 8501's last communications with air traffic control.

Search leader Bambang Soelistyo said: 'As the search and rescue coordinator, I can 95 per cent confirm [this is] debris and objects from the plane. The five per cent is simply because I haven't seen personally seen them.'

Indonesian President Joko Widodo also confirmed plans to visit both the crisis center in Surabaya and the suspected crash location near Pangkalan Bun.

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Members of the Indonesian Air Force show items retrieved from the Java Sea during the recovery operation

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Unidentified items from flight 8501 are carroed in to an Indonesia Air Force press conference earlier today

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A large amount of debris from the plans has been located - including a life raft, life jackets and orange tubes

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A photo taken from a search and rescue aircraft over the Java Sea shows debris from AirAsia flight 8501

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Indonesian search teams believe this lump of metal is a door from missing AirAsia flight 8501

The decision to broadcast the uncensored images on live television has led to severe criticism of news channel TV One.

Grieving friends and relatives of passengers sat sobbing quietly into tissues and gazed into thin air as they took in the news and realized that the 'bodies could be their relatives.
Police officers had to be drafted in to stop press from entering the building, according to Time Magazine.

This morning AirAsia group chief executive Tony Fernandes said on Twitter: 'My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ 8501. On behalf of AirAsia my condolences to all. Words cannot express how sorry I am.'

There were no immediate reports of any survivors, although the presence of a life raft might raise hopes people survived the crash.

A British national, named as Chi Man Choi, according to reports of the passenger manifest in the Indonesian media, is among those on board the plane.

He is thought to have been travelling with his daughter Zoe on tickets bought on Boxing Day.

He is believed to hold a British passport but to have lived in Singapore with his family.

The bodies were seen from a helicopter and were taken to an Indonesian navy ship.

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Rescue workers load body bags onto a flight to Kalimantan in Pangkal Pinang to collect the dead bodies

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Live images shown on Indonesian television showed at least one bloated corpse floating in the water, causing families of the missing to burst into tears and at least one woman to collapse in grief

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Family members of passengers onboard AirAsia Flight QZ8501 react to news about the discovery of debris found floating in the search area

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Indonesian search and rescue aircraft have recorded images of debris on the Java Sea. Authorities are investigating whether they could be pieces of missing AirAsia flight QZ8501

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Objects include a plane door, an emergency slide, and what might be a life raft and life jackets

National Search and Rescue director SB Supriyadi told reporters in Pangkalan Bun in Indonesia that the bodies, which were intact, did not have lifejackets on.

Navy spokesman Manahan Simorangkir said several victims were found while Air Force spokesman Hadi Tjahjanto said at least one body had been found.

Earlier, Indonesia National Search and Rescue spokesman Yusuf Latif said an Indonesian military aircraft saw white, red and black objects, including what appeared to be a lifejacket, off the coast, about 105 miles south of Pangkalan Bun.

A massive international search effort has been launched since Flight 8501, an Airbus A320-200 with 155 passengers and seven crew aboard, disappeared from radar over the Java Sea near Belitung island.

The US, China, Australia, Malaysia and Thailand have all been involved in the search, with local fishermen helping.

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Search and rescue workers load body bags onto a flight for use at the crash scene

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Stacks of body bags are seen being prepared for transportation to the crash site earlier this morning

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Officers of Indonesian Search And Rescue Agency check a map at the command centre at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya. More planes will be in the air and more ships at sea in the next day searching for AirAsia Flight 8501

The news of the sighting of the debris came within two hours of it being revealed that family members were intending to fly over the search area on Sunday so they could pray for those who were missing.

It was not immediately clear whether that charter flight will now go ahead as officials said that viewing the debris would be likely to cause great anxiety.

The items are expected to be picked up by helicopters and flown to a search and rescue co-ordination post on Belitung Island, lying between the southern tip of Sumatra Island and the south of Borneo.

Earlier this morning, search jets were dispatched to Long Island, part of the Indonesian archipelago, to investigate as they continue the hunt for the aircraft which disappeared on Sunday with 162 people on board,CNN reports.

While the smoke sighting could be one of many things, Dr Max Ruland, Director of Operations for the search and rescue mission, confirmed to CBS News that two Cessna jets have been dispatched.

The Airbus A320-200 lost contact at about 6.17am local time en route from Surabaya, in Indonesia's east Java, to Singapore after the crew requested a change of flight plan due to stormy weather.

Aviation experts have revealed veteran pilots usually avoid the area known as the 'thunderstorm factory' where AirAsia Flight 8501 went missing because of its catastrophic storms.

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An Indonesia Navy search and rescue crew looks for AirAsia QZ 8501 on a Maritime Patrol Navy Aircraft above Bangka-Belitung Islands in the Java Sea

Strategic Aviation Solutions chairman Neil Hansford told Channel 9's Today most flights went around the area and somebody 'dropped the ball' when they made the flight plan for QZ8501.

Australia added an extra plane in its contribution to the search this morning.

Two RAAF P3 Orion planes with specialist equipment are now part of the international hunt to find the aircraft. Their search is focused to the west of the island of Kalimantan, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said.

The US navy also agreed to join the multi-national search operation on its third day and have reportedly sent USS Sampson to assist.

A statement from the Pentagon said Indonesia has requested their help and their assistance 'could include some air, surface and sub-surface detection capabilities'.

Day three of the search saw the operation expand to land, including the western part of West Kalimantan province, National Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo confirmed.

Dozens of planes and ships focused their search on two patches of oil spotted in Indonesian waters on Monday as a senior official warned the aircraft was likely at the 'bottom of the sea'. But the patch later emerged to be a coral reef, 9News reported.

Mr Soelistyo said an Indonesian corvette - a warship - was sent to test the spills.

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Aviation Safety Network posted this radar graphic on Twitter showing all the flights in the air at the time QZ8501 went missing. A request by one of the pilots to increase altitude due to stormy weather conditions was denied because another jet was in the airspace at the time, it emerged today

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An Indonesian Navy soldier points to the search area for the missing AirAsia plane, on a map at the Navy Port, in Batam, Riau, Indonesia

AirAsia will offer compensation for missing passengers



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It has also emerged one of the pilots on-board the missing flight had been denied a request to increase altitude to avoid storm clouds minutes before it disappeared.

In the last communication with air traffic control, six minutes before it vanished off radar, a pilot asked permission to turn left and climb from 32,000 feet to 38,000 feet due to the adverse weather.

But the request could not immediately be granted because another plane was in the airspace at 34,000 feet, Bambang Tjahjono, director of the state-owned company in charge of air-traffic control, said.

By the time clearance could be given, Flight 8501 had disappeared, he added.

AirAsia's fleet of short-haul jets was already being fitted with upgraded tracking devices, but the A320 jetliner had not yet been modified when it went missing, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Waters in the search area, which is roughly the size of California, are not particularly deep at between 130 feet and 160 feet.

In Singapore today, people were beginning to make comparisons with the early days of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which lost contact in March this year and has remained missing, with aviation experts concluding that it had probably gone down in the southern Indian Ocean.

A widespread search of the South China Sea where it last made contact failed to turn up anything other than debris and oil slicks that, officially, were not linked to the aircraft.

The scenes of grief at Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur International Airport and in Beijing where MH370 was due to land are now being repeated among relatives and friends in Singapore and Surabaya.

At a centre set up for relatives of the passengers in Surabaya, anger was growing at the lack of information.

Referring to the search teams, Franky Chandra, who has a sibling and three friends on the AirAsia flight, said: 'We only need clear information every hour on where they are going.
'We've been here for two days but the information is unclear. That's all we need... information.'

The flight went missing at 6.17am local time on Sunday while travelling from Indonesia to Singapore as speculation on the cause of the disappearance centred on weather, speed and an older radar system.

Aviation experts have speculated that the flight may have encountered 'black storm cells' which caused a build-up of ice on airspeed senors known as pitot tubes.

A similar scenario was blamed for the Air France disaster when Flight AF447 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009 while en route from Rio De Janeiro to Paris.

Aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas spoke to several check captains and believes the pilot of QZ8501 encountered difficult weather conditions but flew too slow in his efforts to avoid it.

'The QZ8501 was flying too slow, about 100 knots which is about 160 km/h too slow. At that altitude that's exceedingly dangerous,' Mr Thomas said.

'Pilots believe that the crew, in trying to avoid the thunderstorm by climbing, somehow have found themselves flying too slow and thus induced an aerodynamic stall similar to the circumstances of the loss of Air France AF447 to crash in 2009.'

'I have a radar plot which shows him at 36,000 feet and climbing at a speed of 353 knots, which is approximately 100 knots too slow ... if the radar return is correct, he appears to be going too slow for the altitude he is flying at,' Mr Thomas said.

Mr Thomas said this should not happen in an A320, so it appears as though it was related to extreme weather conditions.

'He got caught in a massive updraft or something like that. Something's gone terribly wrong,' he said.

'Essentially the plane is flying too slow to the altitude and the thin air, and the wings won't support it at that speed and you get a stall, an aerodynamic stall.'

The A320, while sophisticated, is not equipped with the latest radar, Mr Thomas said.

The radar used by the A320 can sometimes have problems in thunderstorms and the pilot may have been deceived by the severity of these particular ones.

The latest technology radars, which were pioneered by Qantas in 2002, can give a more complete and accurate reading of a thunderstorm, but they will not be certified for the A320 until next year.

'If you don't have what's called a multi-skilled radar you have to tilt the radar yourself manually, you have to look down to the base of the thunderstorm to see what the intensity of the moisture and the rain is, then you make a judgment of how bad it is.

'It's manual, so it's possible to make a mistake, it has happened,' Mr Thomas explained.

In a separate development, Earth Network, a firm that monitors weather conditions around the world, recorded a number of lightning strikes 'near the path' of the plane when it disappeared on Sunday morning, it was reported by the New York Times.

Although unlikely to have caused structural damage to the A320, lightning can affect navigation systems and flashes could temporarily disorient pilots, the paper notes.

Sudden shifts in wind direction also have the potential to force jet engines into a stall, although experts this scenario is very unlikely and point to the fact that the Airbus A320 is certified to fly up to three hours on a single engine.

AirAsia confirmed there were 155 passengers on board - including 138 adults, 16 children and one infant - and also stated there were two pilots, four flight attendants and one engineer on board.

Nationalities of passengers and crew on board are one Singaporean, one Malaysian, one British, one French, three South Koreans and 155 Indonesians.

The last communication from the cockpit to air traffic control was a request by one of the pilots to increase altitude from 32,000 feet to 38,000 feet because of the rough weather.

Air traffic control was not able to immediately grant the request because another plane was in airspace at 34,000 feet, said Bambang Tjahjono, director of the state-owned company in charge of air-traffic control.

By the time clearance could be given, Flight 8501 had disappeared, Tjahjono said.

The twin-engine, single-aisle plane, which never sent a distress signal, was last seen on radar four minutes after the last communication from the cockpit.

Search efforts for the plane's wreckage resumed on Monday and have been focused around the area of the Java Sea near Belitung.

Boats have been sent from Tanjung Pandan, the largest town on Belitung Island, but are not expected to reach the area until midnight local time, due to inclement weather and sea conditions, reported The Sun Herald.

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Aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas (left) believes the plane, piloted by Captain Iriyanto, was flying too slowly

Suwarto, who has only one name, told the BBC he hoped he would see his son again, but accepted it would be God's will if he didn't.

At Iryanto's house in the East Java town of Sidoarjo, neighbours, relatives and friends gathered to pray and recite the Quran to support the distraught family.

Their desperate cries were so loud, they could sometimes be heard outside where three LCD televisions had been set up to monitor search developments.

'He is a good man. That's why people here appointed him as our neighbourhood chief for the last two years,' said Bagianto Djoyonegoro, a friend and neighbour, adding that despite being busy with his job, Iryanto was always very active in the community and attentive to the needs of the people around him.

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Double tragedy: Cpt Iriyanto's father, Suwarto (above) said the last time he saw his son was at the funeral of his other son who died of diabetes last week

Cpt Iriyanto's nephew told Indonesian news outlet Detik.com his uncle, who is married with two young children, was 'a very caring person'.

He said: 'He is always helping people because he is a very caring person. If there is a sick relative who needed help and even money, my uncle would be there.

'If there are money problems in the family, he would surely help.'

Many recalled him as an experienced Air Force pilot who flew F-16 fighter jets before becoming a commercial airline pilot.

AirAsia said the captain had more than 20,000 flying hours, of which 6,100 were with AirAisa on the Airbus 320.

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Indonesian AirAsia stewardess Khairunisa Haidar Fauzi, who was listed as one of the seven crew members on board missing flight QZ8501

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AirAsia flight attendant Khairunisa Haidar Fauzi was travelling on the missing AirAsia flight



 

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Over 40 bodies recovered at sea as debris pulled from possible AirAsia crash site

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 30 December, 2014, 10:12am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 30 December, 2014, 9:00pm

Reuters, AFP

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Pictures taken in the search for AirAsia flight QZ8501 appear to show debris floating in the water. Photo: AFP

More than 40 bodies have been recovered from the sea near to where AirAsia flight QZ8501 went missing, according to the Indonesian navy, which is helping lead the search.

An Indonesian warship had recovered 40 “and the number is growing”, navy spokesman Manahan Simorangkir said.

Officials coming off a search flight this afternoon said they had spotted several bodies, which were taken to a navy ship, while a spotter plane crew said they had seen a "shadow" on the seabed believed to be the missing plane.

The reported "shadow" marks where the search will be concentrated, National Search and Rescue Agency chief Bambang Soelistyo said, referring to the area about 160 kilometres southwest of the town of Pangkalan Bun in Central Kalimantan on Borneo island. The town has the nearest airstrip to the search zone.

Debris floating on the Java Sea's surface have also been photographed. A navy spokesman said a plane door and oxygen tanks had been recovered and taken away by helicopter for tests.

Relatives of the 162 people missing on the plane hugged each other and burst into tears in Surabaya, where the plane departed from on Sunday, as they watched footage of at least one body on a television feed of Soelistyo’s press conference in Jakarta.

The corpses did not have life jackets on, National Search and Rescue Director SB Supriyadi told reporters in the nearest town, Pangkalan Bun.

Some fainted or became hysterical. Two distraught family members had to be carried out on stretchers from the room where they had been waiting for news in Surabaya.

“My heart will be totally crushed if it’s true. I will lose a son,” said 60-year-old Dwijanto.

Following news of the discovery AirAsia chief executive Tony Fernandes tweeted: "Words cannot express how sorry I am."

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Items resembling an emergency slide, a plane door and lifejackets were earlier spotted floating in the sea, Indonesian authorities said.

“We spotted about 10 big objects and many more small white-coloured objects which we could not photograph,” Indonesian air force official Agus Dwi Putranto told a press conference. “The position is 10 kilometres from the location the plane was last captured by radar,” he said.

He displayed 10 photos of objects resembling a plane door, an emergency slide, and a square box-like object.

“It is not really clear... it could be the wall of the plane or the door of the plane,” he said.

The Jawa Post reported that a body in a white T-shirt and orange life jacket had been identified, while Kompas TV quoted the co-pilot of a spotter aircraft as saying that floating objects resembled humans, suitcases and aircraft debris.

Indonesia National Search and Rescue spokesman Yusuf Latif said the crew of an Indonesian military aircraft had seen white, red and black objects about 105 miles south of Pangkalan Bun.

He said the agency had dispatched at least one helicopter to pick up the debris. The items will be taken to the search and rescue coordination post on Belitung Island.

“This is the most significant finding, but we cannot confirm anything until the investigation is completed,” he said.

Djoko Murjatmodjo, acting director general of air transportation at the transportation ministry, said: “For the time being it can be confirmed that it’s the AirAsia plane and the transport minister will depart soon to Pangkalan Bun [on the island of Borneo].

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Relatives of the missing are distraught after news breaks that the plane has been found. Photo: AFP

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Family members of passengers onboard AirAsia flight QZ8501, react to news of floating debris spotted in the search area. Photo: AFP

“Based on the observation by search and rescue personnel, significant things have been found such as a passenger door and cargo door. It’s in the sea, 100 miles southwest of Pangkalan Bun."

The discovery of the wreckage came as the search for the flight entered its third day.

Earlier it was revealed that shortly before the flight vanished from radar screens the pilots had requested permission to climb to a much higher altitude to avoid bad weather, but that permission was not immediately granted due to air congestion above.

The AirAsia pilots had been worried about the weather and had sought permission to fly at 11,600 metres instead of 9,800 metres. Air traffic control could not immediately give permission as six other airliners were crowding the airspace.

Minutes later, Singapore air traffic controllers - who were relayed the altitude request by Indonesian officials - said QZ8501 could climb, but only to a height of 10,400 metres due to other aircraft in the vicinity. “But when we informed the pilot of the approval at 6.14 am, we received no reply,” AirNav official Wisnu Darjono said.

Four minutes later, the flight disappeared from radar screens.

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Western Indonesia Air Force operation commander Air Vice Marshal Agus Dwi Putranto (L) briefs crews during search for missing AirAsia flight QZ8501, on December 30, 2014. Photo: AFP

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Sunu Widiatmoko (R), president of AirAsia's Indonesian subsidiary, Indonesia-AirAsia, answers questions during a press conference at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya. Photo: AFP

Countries around Asia today stepped up the search for the plane carrying 162 people that is presumed to have crashed in shallow waters off the Indonesian coast, with the United States also sending a warship to help find the missing jet.

Soelistyo, head of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, told local television that the search area between the islands of Sumatra and Borneo was expanded.

The Airbus A320-200 operated by Indonesia AirAsia lost radar contact in poor weather on Sunday morning during a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore. The plane could be at the bottom of the sea, Soelistyo said yesterday.

Around 30 ships and 21 aircraft from Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea were tipped to search around 10,000 square nautical miles today, officials said.

They said the sea was only 50 to 100 metres deep, which would be a help in finding the plane.

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Members of an Indonesian search and rescue team are ferried out to a ship to conduct search operations for QZ8501. Photo: AFP

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The US military is sending the USS Sampson missile destroyer (above) to aid in the search. Photo: AFP

What happened to Flight QZ8501, which had sought permission from Indonesian air traffic control to ascend to avoid clouds, is still a mystery.

Online discussions among pilots have centred on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow in poor weather, and that it might have stalled.

There were seven crew members and 155 passengers, mostly Indonesians except for three South Koreans, a Briton, a Malaysian and a Singaporean. The co-pilot was French.

The Singapore national is a two-year-old girl who was travelling with her British-born father. She was among 17 children on the flight.

The US military said the USS Sampson, a guided missile destroyer, would be on the scene later today.

The US Defence Department said assistance to Indonesia “could include some air, surface and sub-surface detection capabilities”. “We stand ready to assist in any way possible,” Pentagon spokesman Mark Wright said.

China’s Defence Ministry said it had sent a warship to the South China Sea and planes “have begun preparatory work” for search operations.

Searchers had picked up an emergency locator signal off the south of Borneo, but no subsequent signal was found.

This morning, at a crisis centre at the airport in Surabaya, where the plane took off on Sunday, anger had grown among about 100 relatives.

“We only need clear information every hour on where they [search teams] are going,” said Franky Chandra, who has a sibling and three friends on the flight.

“We’ve been here for two days but the information is unclear. That’s all we need.”

The plane, whose engines were made by CFM International, co-owned by General Electric and Safran of France, lacked real-time engine diagnostics or monitoring, a GE spokesman said. Such systems are mainly used on long-haul flights and can provide clues to airlines and investigators when things go wrong.

The plane’s disappearance comes at a sensitive time for Jakarta’s aviation authorities, as they strive to improve the country’s safety reputation to match its status as one of the airline industry’s fastest growing markets.

It also appears to be a third air disaster involving a Malaysian-affiliated carrier in less than a year, further denting confidence in that country’s aviation industry and spooking air travellers across the region.

Indonesia AirAsia is 49 per cent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing on March 8 on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew and has not been found. On July 17, the same airline’s Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

US law enforcement and security officials said passenger and crew lists were being closely examined but so far nothing significant had turned up and that the incident was still regarded as an unexplained accident.

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The next of kin of passengers on the AirAsia flight QZ8501 huddle in prayer at the Surabaya airport, where they have gathered to wait for news. Photo: AP

Pilots and aviation experts said thunderstorms, and requests to gain altitude to avoid them, were not unusual in that area.

“The airplane’s performance is directly related to the temperature outside and increasing altitude can lead to freezing of the static radar, giving pilots an erroneous radar reading,” said a Qantas Airways pilot with 25 years’ experience flying in the region.

The resulting danger is that pilots take incorrect action to control the aircraft, said the pilot, who requested anonymity.

The Indonesian pilot was experienced and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, the airline said.

The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002.


 

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2014 was a deadly year for aviation, but safety record is improving

Malaysian catastrophes got the headlines - and there were weather-related incidents - but there were also a record low number of crashes

PUBLISHED : Monday, 29 December, 2014, 11:20pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 30 December, 2014, 9:03am

Reuters in London

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Even before an Indonesia AirAsia Airbus 320 jet with 162 people on board went missing in bad weather on Sunday between the Indonesian city of Surabaya and Singapore, 762 people had lost their lives in seven fatal accidents this year.

The loss of Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501 would cap one of the deadliest years in civil aviation for almost a decade - yet experts say the industry's underlying safety record is improving.

The statistics underscore a year of tragic contrasts dominated by two Malaysian catastrophes and a handful of weather-related incidents, yet a record-low number of crashes.

Even before an Indonesia AirAsia Airbus 320 jet with 162 people on board went missing in bad weather on Sunday between the Indonesian city of Surabaya and Singapore, 762 people had lost their lives in seven fatal accidents this year.

If the Indonesian-registered aircraft is confirmed to have crashed killing all on board, the accident would make 2014 the worst year for loss of life in civil aviation since 2005, when 1,014 people were killed in passenger accidents, according to the Netherlands-based Aviation Safety Network.

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But the number of fatal accidents in 2014 would stand at only eight, if Flight QZ8501 is included, compared with 24 in 2005. This would be the lowest in memory, reflecting the peculiar nature of this year's disasters.

"Remarkably, 2014 has the lowest number for passenger flight accidents in modern aviation history," said Harro Ranter, founder and director of Aviation Safety Network, which runs an independent database.

A combined total of 537 people were on board Malaysian Airlines' Flight MH370, which went missing on March 8 and has not been found, and Flight MH17 which was shot down over Ukraine on July 17. More than 160 people lost their lives in two bad weather incidents in July. Forty-eight died when a Transasia Airways aircraft tried to land in Taiwan and 116 when a Swiftair jet operated by Air Algerie crashed in northern Mali.

Airlines and manufacturers contend that aviation is the safest form of transport amid improvements in aircraft design, training and infrastructure.

The International Air Transport Association, which represents about 250 airlines, said earlier this month that 2014 was among the safest when measured against the volume of traffic. In 2009, according to IATA, there was one "hull loss" for every 1.5 million flights, which translates to 0.67 for every 1 million flights.

As of 30 September, the 2014 jet hull loss rate stood at 0.22 per million flights. The average rate for IATA members, which does not include most low-cost airlines, was 0.37 over the last five years, according to the Geneva-based organisation. Its figures only include Western-built jets.

However, safety authorities say accidents involving a loss of control, such as those that sometimes occur during severe weather, are nearly always catastrophic even though they are also rare.

Last year, only three per cent of accidents involved a loss of control during flight, but these accounted for 60 per cent of that year's fatalities, according to the UN International Civil Aviation Organisation.

The statistical reassurances will probably come as cold comfort for many Malaysians, who now must reckon with the fact that Malaysian-owned carriers have now been involved in the three worst air disasters of the year. That is an unlikely status for any country, much less Malaysia, population 30 million, and hardly a global aviation power.

It's tempting to look for a common thread to explain Malaysia's string of bad aviation luck. But prior to March, Malaysia's two major carriers had exemplary safety records, and there was nothing about them to lead an outside observer to believe that they would lose three jets in nine months.

Additional reporting by Bloomberg


 

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Despite tragedies this year, air travel is still safe

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 30 December, 2014, 12:47am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 30 December, 2014, 8:53am

SCMP Editorial

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If there are no survivors on the AirAsia Airbus 320 jet that was flying from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore, 2014 will have been the worst year for air travel since 2005. Photo: Bloomberg

Air safety standards have reached such heights that the possibility of a commercial flight not successfully landing on the runway is one in a billion. Probability is a purely intellectual pursuit, though, as the relatives and friends of the 162 people on board AirAsia flight QZ8501 only know too well. For them, statistics are meaningless; their emotions are running high with grief over the loss of loved ones. At such a fraught time, even a standard of 10 to the minus ninth is perhaps not good enough for some travellers.

The global record would not seem good, after all: If there are no survivors on the AirAsia Airbus 320 jet that was flying from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore, 2014 will have been the worst year for air travel since 2005. Asia has borne the brunt, with 537 people lost on two Malaysia Airlines flights - MH370 , which disappeared on March 8, and MH17, shot down by a missile over Ukraine on July 17. A Transasia Airways crash in Taiwan on July 23 claimed another 48 lives. There are more than 50,000 flights around the world each day, but such figures offer no comfort to those about to board an aircraft.

Plane manufacturers and airlines at times of tragedy are at pains to stress that air travel is the safest form of transport and that standards have never been so high. They are right - although hundreds of people died in fatal crashes this year, confirmation of deaths on the AirAsia jet would make it only the eighth plane to crash with fatalities. The 1,104 killed in 2005 were involved in 24 accidents. Safety is constantly being improved through better regulations, aircraft design, infrastructure and training.

The rarity of crashes leads to even higher standards, with every facet being poured over by investigators, manufacturers and industry regulators. It will be no different for the AirAsia jet, which vanished from radar screens 42 minutes into its flight. This is cold comfort for those affected, nor does it completely eliminate accidents, but over time, takes the apprehension and terror out of the next flight boarded.


 

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Unread emails helped save lives of 26 passengers who failed to catch missing AirAsia flight to Singapore

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 30 December, 2014, 3:35am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 30 December, 2014, 3:35am

Agencies in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur

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Former beauty queen Anggi Mahesti (left) and her family missed the flight after ignoring an email about its earlier departure. Photo: Java Post

Unread emails, missed phone calls, an ailing grandfather - such were the mundane factors that may have saved the lives of passengers who missed catching Flight QZ8501 before it disappeared en route to Singapore.

A passenger manifest showed that 26 people with tickets for the ill-fated flight did not board the AirAsia aircraft, which took off on Sunday from the central Indonesian city of Surabaya.

Former beauty queen Anggi Mahesti was part of a family group of 10 who missed the plane because they were not aware of a change in the departure time.

"It was already the final call when my husband reached the airport in the first car with our bags," Mahesti, a Miss Indonesia runner-up in 2008, said yesterday in Surabaya. "Most of the family were in another car that arrived 15 minutes later. The plane left without us."

Her husband Ari Putro Cahyono, who runs a motorcycle dealership, failed to open an email sent by AirAsia on December 15 telling them the flight's departure had been brought forward by two hours to a 5.35am, and also missed a phone call from the airline earlier this month, Mahesti said. He was negotiating refunds with AirAsia when told the plane was missing.

The group of six adults and four children had been heading to Singapore to celebrate New Year. Cahyono's brother-in-law Joedhey Ribawantodwi, his wife Christianawati and their three children were joining the trip.

Christianawati, 36, said her family also missed the emails and phone calls. "I was shocked to hear about [the flight's disappearance]. Maybe it is all God's plan that my family and I were not on the flight. It was a blessing in disguise," Christianawati said.

"I hope that the plane is found and everyone is safe."

Christopher Incha Prasetya, aged 10, cried when his parents cancelled a four-day trip to Singapore because his grandfather was ill.

A day later, he had to be convinced the plane that would have flown them there was missing.

"The kids were still on holidays and Christopher was very upset when we said that we couldn't go after all," his mother, Inge Goreti Ferdiningsih, 37, from Surabaya said. "When we told him the plane was missing, he didn't believe us until we showed him the tickets."

Ferdiningsih, an accountant, said she and her businessman husband, Chandra Susanto, had paid more than 8 million rupiah (about US$645) for five return fares for their family, which included seven-year-old daughter Nadine and son Felix, five.

They had booked the trip in June and had planned to spend three nights on the Singapore resort island of Sentosa, with the children keen to visit a water theme park. But with her father ill, Ferdiningsih said they decided to call off the holiday the day before the flight.

Agence France-Presse and Bloomberg


 

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Relatives overwhelmed as search recovers remains near where missing AirAsia plane is thought to have crashed


Grieving relatives break down as debris from AirAsia plane is discovered off Borneo island

PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 31 December, 2014, 1:44am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 31 December, 2014, 1:44am

Agencies in Pangkalan Bunand Jakarta

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Relatives of passengers aboard missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 break down after watching news footage in Surabaya of an unidentified body floating in the Java Sea. Photo: AFP

Search crews will today step up their hunt for the data recorders of doomed AirAsia flight QZ8501 as wreckage and bodies were spotted off Indonesia.

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The grim discoveries prompted raw scenes of emotion from sobbing relatives of the 162 people aboard. At least two family members fainted after watching television footage of a body floating in the sea.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo last night praised the search teams and said three warships were on their way to the suspected crash location.

"[Today] there will be a massive search by the ships and helicopters," he said after flying over the area. The president added: "We all pray for the families to be given fortitude and strength to face this tragedy".

AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes also rushed to Surabaya, where relatives have gathered

"It's an experience I never dreamt of happening and it's probably an airline CEO's worst nightmare," he said. Referring to the passengers' loved ones, he added: "Words can't express what they are going through."

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Members of the Indonesian air force keep a look out during search and rescue operations for the missing AirAsia flight QZ8501. Photo: AFP

A Chinese frigate was yesterday on its way to help the search, while Singapore said it was sending two underwater beacon detectors to try to detect pings from the voice and data recorders.

Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and the US have also joined the search.

The Airbus A320-200 disappeared en route from Indonesia's second-largest city Surabaya to Singapore during a storm early on Sunday. It is now believed to have crashed in the Java Sea southwest of the island of Borneo, with debris including an exit door, a blue suitcase and bodies retrieved from the area. Authorities confirmed the debris was from flight QZ8501.

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Objects identified as belongings of AirAsia QZ8501. Photo: TNS

A military plane spotted a "shadow" on the seabed believed to be that of the missing jet, National Search and Rescue Agency chief Bambang Soelistyo said. Yesterday the search chief said three bodies had been recovered.

The plane disappeared after its pilot failed to get permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather because of heavy air traffic, officials said. Online discussion among pilots has centred on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled.

Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, Reuters, Bloomberg

 

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Worst fears are confirmed as bodies of AirAsia flight QZ8501 passengers pulled from water


Kristin Shorten, Network Writers and wires
Herald Sun
December 31, 2014 5:44AM

INDONESIA’S National Search and Rescue Agency chief has confirmed that three bodies have been recovered so far in the search for the AirAsia plane which crashed in the Java Sea, after another official said 40 had been found.

“Today we evacuated three bodies and they are now in the warship Bung Tomo,” Bambang Soelistyo told a news conference in Jakarta, adding that they were two women and a man.

The US Navy announced it would send a second ship to help search for the wreckage.

The USS Fort Worth is “prepared to deploy from the region from Singapore,” spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told CNN.

“That ship can be ready to sail in a day or two,” Kirby said. An American destroyer, the USS Sampson, has already deployed to the area to aid international efforts.

The search of the crash site has now been suspended for the day.

Navy spokesman Manahan Simorangkir told AFP earlier that, according to naval radio, a warship had recovered more than 40 bodies from the sea. But he later said that report was a miscommunication by his staff.

The bodies were found in Java Sea waters about 10km from Flight 8501’s last communications with air-traffic control. The bodies, swollen but intact, were brought to an Indonesian navy ship. The bodies did not have life jackets on.

AirAsia confirmed that the debris found in the Karimata Strait around 160km south west from Pangkalan Bun was from QZ8501. A shadow on the seabed is also believed to be that of the AirAsia jet.

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Debris ... Indonesian Air Force personnel carry airplane parts recovered from the water near the site where AirAsia Flight 8501 crashed. Picture: AP

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Rescue mission ... a rescuer is lowered on a rope from a hovering helicopter in Java Sea waters. Picture: AP Photo/TV One

Tony Fernandes, Group Chief Executive Officer of AirAsia, said he was “absolutely devastated”.

Speaking in Indonesia’s second-biggest city of Surabaya after meeting with distraught relatives of some of the 162 passengers, Mr Fernandes said he “apologised profusely” for the accident.

“The passengers were on my aircraft and I have to take responsibility for that,” he said, adding that he was focusing on supporting the families. “It’s an experience I never dreamt of happening and it’s probably an airline CEO’s worst nightmare.”

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An earlier statement from his company said employees of affiliate AirAsia Indonesia, which operated the crashed plane, had been sent to the site where debris was found and would fully co-operate in the investigation.

“There is at least some closure as opposed to not knowing what’s happened and holding out hope,” Mr Fernandes told reporters.

He added that the pilot was “extremely experienced” with 20,000 hours of flying.

“There were some very unique weather conditions and let’s wait for the investigation to be concluded,” he said.

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In shock .. Tony Fernandes, Group Chief Executive Officer of AirAsia, said he was “absolutely devastated”. Picture: AFP

More than 48 hours after the Airbus A320-200 disappeared en route from Indonesia’s second largest city Surabaya to Singapore, the sightings confirmed the plane crashed into water only about 45 metres deep.

Indonesian officials spotted several pieces of debris — resembling an emergency slide, plane door and other safety objects — near where the plane was last tracked by radar.

Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency chief also confirmed that planes also spotted what they believe is the AirAsia plane.

“God blessed us today,” Bambang Soelistyo told a press conference. “At 12.50 the air force Hercules found an object described as a shadow at the bottom of the sea in the form of a plane. All elements in the areas and search and rescue personnel will be moved to the location.”

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Findings ... members of the Indonesian air force show items retrieved from the Java sea. Picture: AFP

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Search team ... an Indonesian search and rescue team arrive at the port in Manggar on East Belitung island. Picture: AFP

Meanwhile, pandemonium broke out at Juanda Airport after relatives of AirAsia flight QZ8501 received the tragic news by Indonesian TV footage showing floating bodies

At least two distraught family members were carried out on stretchers from the room where they had been waiting for news in Surabaya.

Relatives burst into tears and hugged one another amid cries for more ambulances.

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Tragic ... a man is comforted by his companion after news breaks that a body had been retrieved from the Java Sea. Picture: Getty Images

A female AirAsia officer shouted at the television media for showing footage of a floating body, while about 200 journalists were barred from the room holding the families, the windows of which were boarded up.

“Is it possible for you not to show a picture of the dead? Please do not show a picture of a dead body,” said the officer. “That’s crazy.”

TV One, the network which showed the footage, have since apologised

Haidar Fauzi, the father of one of the flight attendants, Khairunnisa Haidar Fauzi, said: “If it is true (the debris and body finding), we accept it. We know, indeed, that is the risk of becoming a flight attendant. I agreed she should become a flight attendant. She has been a flight attendant for two years.”

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Heartbreaking ... there were scenes of raw emotion as relatives deal with the shocking news. Picture: AFP

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Shock ... some relatives had to be carried out of the airport on stretchers after seeing the harrowing news footage. Picture: AP

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Hopeful ... family members huddle together and pray for passengers and crew aboard the missing plane. Picture: AFP

The plane with 155 passengers and seven crew on board disappeared on Sunday — halfway into what should have been a two-hour hop from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore — after encountering storm clouds.

An Indonesian military aircraft yesterday discovered the crash site after it saw white, red and black objects, including what looked to be a life jacket. AirAsia’s jets are painted red and white.

Basarnas then dispatched at least one helicopter to retrieve the items and take them to the search and rescue coordination post on Belitung Island.

Indonesian air force official Agus Dwi Putranto said they had spotted about 10 big objects and many more small white-coloured objects, all of which they could not photograph.

“The position is 10km from the location the plane was last captured by radar,” he said.

This came after Indonesian officials yesterday sent teams to investigate reports of smoke on an island in the area where the plane had gone missing.

Before the discovery, Basarnas expanded the search area for a third consecutive day.

Australia, Singapore and Malaysia had sent maritime surveillance aircraft and warships to assist, joining Indonesian planes, ships and scores of fishing boats scouring the waters for signs of the ill-fated aircraft.

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Graphics showing last location of #QZ8501 on Flightradar24 and location where debris and bodies have been found


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Australia yesterday doubled its contribution, sending a second RAAF P3 Orion plane with specialist search equipment.

Washington was deploying the USS Sampson to join the growing international effort, with the destroyer expected to arrive in the search zone on Tuesday.

South Korea was also sending a P-3 reconnaissance plane with China sending a frigate and military aircraft.

BELITUNG, INDONESIA - DECEMBER 29: An aerial view of Belitung, the search area for missin

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Aerial view of Belitung, Indonesia ... the search area for AirAsia Flight QZ8501 the day after it was reported missing. Picture: Getty Images

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Search mission .... Indonesian Air Force C-130 crew scan the horizon during a search operation. Picture: AP

Basarnas chief Bambang Soelistyo said an Indonesian navy ship reached the spot where a military craft reported two oil patches in the Java Sea east of Belitung island. It was not jet fuel, or even oil, but coral.

Meanwhile more details of the pilot’s last communication, in which he asked to ascend to avoid a menacing storm, have been revealed.

Within just ‘two to three minutes’ of its final communication with air traffic controllers at 6.16am AirAsia Flight QZ8501 was gone.

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Debris ... plane parts, suitcases and other items were pulled from the Java Sea. Picture: AP

AirNav, Indonesia’s flight navigation service, yesterday explained that the pilot’s request could not be approved due to heavy traffic on the popular route.

“The pilot requested to air traffic controllers to deviate to the left side due to bad weather, which was immediately approved,” said Wisnu Darjono, the safety director for Indonesia’s flight navigation service AirNav.

“After a few seconds the pilot requested to ascend from 32,000 to 38,000 feet but could not be immediately approved as some planes were flying above it at that time.”

“Two to three minutes later when the controller was going to give a clearance to a level of 34,000, the plane did not give any response.”

The pilot had originally made the request to fly at 34,000 feet at take off, but due to traffic it was not approved.

“At that time there were 11 planes flying route M635,” Mr Darjono said, adding that 160 flights a day used the route to Singapore.


 

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Advocates demanding better tracking systems in light of time it took to find AirAsia flight

PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 31 December, 2014, 5:34am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 31 December, 2014, 5:34am

Reuters in New York

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Air traffic near where the flight went missing. Photo: SCMP

Air travel advocates are demanding global aviation authorities explain how the downed AirAsia jetliner with 162 people aboard took more than two days to locate when satellites and webcams monitor society's every move.

"It should be impossible for an airliner to go missing" in an age when people can track their phones and cars to within a few metres, said Paul Hudson, president of Flyersrights.org and a member of a US Federal Aviation Authority rule-making advisory committee.

The AirAsia pilots had been worried about the weather on Sunday and had sought permission to climb above threatening clouds, but were denied due to heavy air traffic. Minutes later, the jet was gone from the radar without issuing a distress signal.

The jet did not fly far from its last radar sighting and where its debris was located yesterday.

But the technology exists for more closely pinpointing the location of flights, tracking experts say, and this would have helped narrow the search area in the Java Sea. But those systems are not fully deployed.

Global air-traffic control systems are in various stages of upgrade from radar to GPS ground and satellite navigation amid disagreements between the airlines, governments and regulators about the standards, costs and any recommended implementation deadlines.

Hudson's group complains that failures going back more than a decade have led to many recommendations but little change in how planes are monitored. The group wants regulators to require better tracking.

Kevin Mitchell, founder and chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, an advocacy group for corporate travel departments, said the inability to quickly locate planes would likely have a "chilling effect". "We're pressing for making tracking a higher priority" for regulators, he said.

Charles Leocha, chairman of Travelers United, another advocacy group, predicted that despite the increased urgency, "a solution is at least a decade away" because of industry reluctance to incur costs and the difficulty setting equipment standards.

Better tracking and real-time flight-data monitoring became urgent issues after Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 went missing in March with 239 people on board. It is thought to have crashed in a remote part of the Indian Ocean.

Its disappearance prompted the International Civil Aviation Organisation, a United Nations agency, to set up a task force led by the International Air Transport Association on tracking systems. Its working group, representing airlines, pilots, air traffic controllers and airplane makers, already has agreed aircraft should be tracked to the nearest nautical mile.

Additional reporting by Associated Press

 

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No victim from crashed AirAsia plane was wearing life jacket, Indonesian official says


PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 31 December, 2014, 9:29am
UPDATED : Thursday, 01 January, 2015, 8:14am

Reuters

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Indonesian military personnel carry two coffins of unidentified victims found from the AirAsia crash site. Photo: AFP

An Indonesian search and rescue official said today that none of the bodies recovered so far from the crashed AirAsia jet had been wearing a life jacket.

"There is no victim that has been found wearing a life jacket," said Tatang Zaenudin, deputy head of operations at the national search and rescue agency.

"We found a body at 8.20am and a life jacket at 10.32am so there was a time difference. This is the latest information we have," he added.

The same official said earlier that one of the recovered bodies had been wearing a life jacket, prompting speculations that those on board had at least some time before the aircraft hit the water, or after it hit the water and before it sank.

The pilots did not issue a distress signal before the plane disappeared. The flight had failed to get permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather because of heavy air traffic.

Rescuers believe they have found the plane on the ocean floor off Borneo, after sonar detected a large, dark object about 30 to 50 metres beneath the water's surface, near where debris and bodies were found.

But bad weather and strong currents were sending wreckage drifting far from the crash site and hampering search efforts.

National Search and Rescue Agency chief Vice Marshall Bambang Soelistyo said that so far, the fuselage had not been found despite the sonar images indicating a bulky object on the sea floor.

The commander of the Bung Tomo warship which recovered some debris said they lifted 28 items from the water. “There were snacks, instant porridge, and three umbrellas,” Colonel Yayan said in a local TV interview.

“It seems all the wreckage found has drifted more than 50 kilometres from yesterday’s location,” said Vice Air Marshal Sunarbowo Sandi, search and rescue coordinator in Pangkalan Bun on Borneo island, the closest town to the site. “We are expecting those bodies will end up on beaches.”

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The bodies will be sent for identification at a police hospital in Surabaya. Relatives have sent blood samples for DNA tests. Photo: AFP

Soelistyo also told a press conference that of the total seven bodies - four men and three women - one of them was wearing a flight attendant’s uniform.

The first two corpses, placed in simple wooden boxes topped with flowers, were unloaded in Pangkalan Bun.

Most of the people on board were Indonesians. No survivors have been found.

Authorities in Surabaya, the plane's take-off point, were making preparations to receive and identify bodies, including arranging 130 ambulances to take victims to a police hospital and collecting DNA from relatives.

”After being cleaned up and prayed for, we will place the bodies into coffins and fly them to Surabaya for identification,” Soelistyo said.

Earlier reports tha 40 bodies had been recovered were later put down to a miscommunication by navy staff.

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An Indonesian search and rescue team carries a dead body on a stretcher in Surabaya, where they will be identified. Photo: AFP

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Indonesian Air Force personnel carry a suitcase thought to originate from Air Asia flight QZ8501 in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia on Tuesday. Photo: Xinhua

The identification process will be carried out by a disaster victim investigation team of the East Java Police at HS Samsoeri Mertojoso Police Hospital in Surabaya, he added.

About 125 family members had planned to travel to Pangkalan Bun, 160 kilometres from the area where bodies were first spotted, to start identifying their loved ones. However, Surabaya airport general manager Trikora Hardjo later said the trip was cancelled after authorities suggested they stay to avoid slowing down the operation.

Instead, some relatives gave blood for DNA tests in Surabaya, where the bodies will be transported, and submitted photos of their loved ones along with identifying information, such as tattoos or birth marks that could help make the process easier.

Ships and planes had been scouring the Java Sea for Flight QZ8501 since Sunday, when it lost contact during bad weather about 40 minutes into its flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

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A member of Indonesian search and rescue team shows the possible location of AirAsia flight QZ8501 at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya. Photo: Xinhua

“We are praying it is the plane so the evacuation can be done quickly,” Hernanto said.

“As soon as the weather is clear, the bodies will be brought to Pangkalan Bun,” the town with the nearest airstrip to the crash site, said Soelistyo.

Officials said waves two to three metres high and winds were hampering the hunt for wreckage and preventing divers from searching the crash zone.

Indonesia’s meteorology and geophysics agency predicted that the conditions would worsen, with more intense rains, through Friday

Helicopters were largely grounded, but ships were still scouring the area.

Forty-seven frogmen of the navy and 20 others from the National Search and Rescue Agency were to be dispatched by Wednesday to the crash site for search efforts, he said.

Japan said today it is sending two destroyers and three helicopters to aid in the search at Indonesia's request.

The black box flight data and cockpit voice recorder have yet to be found in the relatively shallow waters of the Java Sea.

Online discussion among pilots has centred on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled.

“The fact that the debris appears fairly contained suggests the aircraft broke up when it hit the water, rather than in the air,” said Neil Hansford, a former pilot and chairman of consultancy firm Strategic Aviation Solutions.

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An oxygen tube found near the suspected crash site. Photo: Xinhua

Nearly all the passengers from Indonesia were frequent visitors to Singapore, particularly on holidays.

But it was 13-year-old passenger Adrian Fernando’s first trip to the city-state and was supposed to be a fun vacation with his aunt, uncle and cousin before he went back to school.

“He is my only son,” said mother Linca Gonimasela, 39, who could not join them on the flight because of work. “At first, he didn’t want to go, but later on he was persuaded to join them for the New Year holiday.”

Just one Surabaya church — Manwar Sharon Church — lost 41 members in the crash.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo said his priority was retrieving the bodies. “I feel a deep loss over this disaster and pray for the families to be given fortitude and strength,” Widodo said.

Widodo, speaking in Surabaya on Tuesday after grim images of the scene in the Java Sea were broadcast on television, said AirAsia would pay an immediate advance of money to relatives, many of whom collapsed in grief when they saw the television pictures from the search.

AirAsia Chief Executive Tony Fernandes, who has described the crash as his “worst nightmare”, was rushing to Surabaya where relatives of the missing are gathered at a crisis centre in Indonesia’s second-largest city.

About 30 ships and 21 aircraft from Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and the United States have been involved in the search.

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Relatives of passengers of AirAsia Flight 8501 cry after visiting the crisis centre at the airport in Surabaya, where authorities have been keeping them abreast of the latest developments. Photo: AP

Singapore said it was sending two underwater beacon detectors to try to pick up pings from the black boxes, which contain cockpit voice and flight data recorders.

The United States said its missile-guided destroyer USS Sampson and combat ship USS Fort Worth were awaiting instructions from the Indonesian search command on the recovery operation.

Investigators are focusing initially on whether the crew took too long to request permission to climb, or could have ascended on their own initiative earlier, said a source close to the probe, adding that poor weather could have played a part as well.

A Qantas pilot with 25 years of experience flying in the region said the discovery of the debris field relatively close to the last known radar plot of the plane pointed to an aerodynamic stall, most likely due to bad weather. One possibility is that the plane’s instruments iced up in a tropical thunderstorm, giving the pilots inaccurate readings.

The lack of a distress call indicated the pilots may have realised too late they were in trouble and were too busy struggling to control the aircraft to issue a call, the Qantas pilot said.

The Indonesian pilot, a former Air Force jet fighter pilot with 6,100 flying hours under his belt, was experienced and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, said the airline, which is 49 per cent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia.

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Indian sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik gives the final touches to a sand sculpture portraying two missing aircraft, AirAsia QZ8501 and Malayasia Airlines MH370 on a Bay of Bengal beach. Photo: AFP

Three airline disasters involving Malaysian-affiliated carriers in less than a year have dented confidence in the country’s aviation industry and spooked travellers across the region.

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 went missing in March on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew and has not been found. On July 17, the same airline’s Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

In an additional incident, an AirAsia plane from Manila overshot the runway on landing at Kalibo in the central Philippines on Tuesday. No one was hurt.

On board Flight QZ8501 were 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia and Britain. The co-pilot was French.

The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002.

With additional reporting from Associated Press and Agence France-Presse



 

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Crowded skies in Southeast Asia put pressure on pilots, air traffic control


Weighing risks in volatile weather becomes more difficult, pilots say, in a region that has seen explosive growth in its budget carriers

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 01 January, 2015, 3:03am
UPDATED : Thursday, 01 January, 2015, 3:03am

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A Lion Air plane lies in water after crashing in Bali. Photo: AFP

The sheer volume of flights in the skies over Southeast Asia is putting pressure on outdated air traffic control and on pilots to take risky unilateral action in crises such as that possibly faced by the AirAsia Flight QZ8501.

Pilots who have flown the Indonesia to Singapore route say it's not unusual for delays to requests to increase altitude to avoid bad weather - and for requests to eventually be rejected due to the number of other planes in the area.

That leaves pilots flying in a region of volatile weather conditions facing a high-risk challenge: when to take matters into their own hands and declare an emergency, allowing them to take action without getting permission from air traffic control.

Most consider that step, which requires them to broadcast a wideband call to other aircraft in the area and that will later be closely scrutinised by regulators, a last resort.

"As a professional pilot, you are obligated to think quickly," a pilot for Quantas Airways who has 25 years experience in the region said.

"If you've signed for the plane, as we put it, you've signed for potentially 300 passengers and millions of dollars worth of aircraft; that's a multibillion dollar liability. Part of the job is to balance the risk and make a snap decision," he said.

Weighing those risks has become increasingly difficult in Southeast Asia, an area that has seen explosive growth in budget air travel in recent years.

The number of passengers carried annually across Asia-Pacific has jumped by two-thirds in the past five years to more than one billion, according to the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation. Budget airlines, which only took to the skies around a dozen years ago, today make up about 60 percent of Southeast Asia's seat capacity. AirAsia and Indonesia's Lion Air have placed record orders with the main plane makers.

Boeing predicts the region's airlines will need about 13,000 new planes over the next two decades, and Airbus expects Asia-Pacific to drive demand over that period."There are certain flight corridors that are over-stressed due to traffic," said a former Singapore Airlines pilot with a decade's flying experience at the carrier. "One certainly would be the Indonesia/Singapore flights which are flown by many different companies and aircraft types at a variety of altitudes and speeds."

Pilots say that causes a logistical nightmare for the region's air traffic control (ATC), particularly outside of the high-tech hubs such as Singapore.

"As the airways become more crowded, it takes ATC longer to coordinate and give clearances such as higher altitudes and weather deviations," the former SIA pilot said.

This can be critical in a region where weather conditions can change very quickly, with strong winds and tropical thunderstorms posing time-critical challenges for pilots.

The circumstances around the AirAsia crash are not yet known, but the investigators and the airline's chief Tony Fernandes have pointed to the changeable weather as being a significant factor.

The Association of Asia Pacific Airlines said last month that while airlines were investing heavily in fuel-efficient planes to meet rising demand, there was growing concern about the need to also invest in related infrastructure, such as airport terminals, runways and various air navigation services.To keep aircraft travelling in a flight corridor at a safe distance from each other, air traffic controllers in Indonesia employ procedural separation - where they use pilots' radio reports to calculate their position relative to other traffic.

That takes longer than the more sophisticated radar separation used in Singapore and elsewhere in the world, which allows a controller to more quickly take stock of radar returns from all aircraft in the area.

Pilots said critical decisions often come down to experience.

"In my opinion, if I don't get permission (to change course) and there's weather ahead, I'll just deviate and deal with the authorities later," said another former SIA pilot.


 

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AirAsia flight 'made unbelievably steep climb before crash'

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 01 January, 2015, 3:03am
UPDATED : Thursday, 01 January, 2015, 3:03am

Reuters in Surabaya

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Indonesian military forces carry a victim's coffin. Photo: AFP

Radar data being examined by investigators appears to show the doomed AirAsia plane made an "unbelievably" steep climb before it crashed - possibly pushing it beyond the Airbus A320-200's limits, according to a source.

The data was transmitted before flight QZ8501 disappeared from the screens of air traffic controllers in Jakarta on Sunday, according to the unnamed source.

"So far, the numbers taken by the radar are unbelievably high. This rate of climb is very high, too high. It appears to be beyond the performance envelope of the aircraft," he said.

It comes as conflicting reports emerged yesterday over whether one of the bodies recovered from the sea was wearing a life jacket.

Tatang Zaenudin, an official with Indonesia's search and rescue agency, had initially said one of the bodies found had been wearing a life jacket.

But he later said no victim had been recovered with a life jacket on.

Rescuers believe they have found the plane on the ocean floor off Borneo, after sonar detected a large, dark object beneath waters near where debris and some bodies were found on the surface.

Ships and planes have been scouring the Java Sea for the plane since Sunday, when it lost contact with air traffic controllers following a request to increase altitude during bad weather about 40 minutes into its flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore with 162 people on board.

Nine bodies have been recovered from the sea, some fully clothed, which could indicate the plane was intact when it hit the water. That would support a theory that it suffered an aerodynamic stall.

Two bodies, in coffins bedecked with flowers and marked 001 and 002, arrived on an air force plane in Surabaya yesterday, with soldiers acting as pall bearers. Most of those on board the crashed six-year-old AirAsia plane were Indonesians.

A spokesman for the head of the search and rescue agency in Surabaya said rescuers believed they had found the plane on the sea bed in waters 30-50 metres deep. The black box flight data and cockpit voice recorder has not been found.

Strong wind and waves hampered the search and with visibility at less than a kilometre the air operation was called off yesterday afternoon.

Colleagues and friends of the Indonesian captain on board have described him as an experienced and professional pilot.


 

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No 'pings' from black box detected in underwater search for downed AirAsia plane

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 01 January, 2015, 11:13am
UPDATED : Thursday, 01 January, 2015, 3:43pm

Reuters in Surabaya

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An Indonesian search and rescue team unloads the body of a victim as rain starts to pour in Pangkalan Bun. Photo: AFP

Authorities revealed they have not heard any signals from the black boxes of downed flight AirAsia QZ8501, as ships and air patrol raced to find the wreckage amid concerns the weather might deteriorate again and strong currents would send the debris further adrift.

None of the tell-tale black box "pings" has been detected during the search in the relatively shallow waters of the Java Sea, an official said.

The devices - a cockpit voice recorder and flight-data recorder - send out continuous signals, for 30 days, in the event of an accident to help rescuers find a plane.

The search focused on a large, dark object on the ocean floor, lying just 30-50 metres deep, that was detected by sonar. The morning's clear skies were short-lived as rough weather came again, leaving divers unable to resume full-scale operations.

Vice Air Marshal Sunarbowo Sandi, search and rescue coordinator in Pangkalan Bun, the closest town to the targeted area, said he was hopeful divers would soon be able to explore the wreckage site.

“It’s possible the bodies are in the fuselage,” he said. “So it’s a race now against time and weather.”

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Indonesian police carry parts of an airplane recovered from the sea to a holding point at the port of Pangkalan Bun. Photo: AP

Investigators are working on a theory that the plane went into an aerodynamic stall as it climbed steeply to avoid a storm about 40 minutes into the flight.

A source close to the probe into what happened said radar data appeared to show that the aircraft made an “unbelievably” steep climb before it crashed, possibly pushing the Airbus A320-200 beyond its limits.

Investigators are working on a theory that it went into aerodynamic stall as the pilot climbed steeply to avoid a storm.

“So far, the numbers taken by the radar are unbelievably high. This rate of climb is very high, too high. It appears to be beyond the performance envelope of the aircraft,” said the source, who declined to be named.

But the source said more information was needed to come to a firm conclusion.

“We’re making an all-out effort to search for bodies and locate the fuselage,” search and rescue official Sunarbowo Sandi said from Pangkalan Bun, a town on Borneo with the nearest airstrip to the crash site.

“Ten investigators from the national transport safety committee (KNKT) along with two French and two Singapore investigators will join the search today to locate the fuselage,” he said.

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Indonesian Special Forces prepare for a recovery mission for AirAsia flight QZ8501 at the airport in Pangkalan Bun. Photo: Reuters

“We hope that an underwater beacon will be able to detect the weak signal transmitted by the ELT [emergency locator transmitter],” he added.

Singapore has sent an unmanned submersible vehicle that could scan objects on the sea floor.

After bad weather and strong currents hampered Wednesday's search, the skies over Pangkalan Bun air base near the site cleared today and the seas calmed, raising hopes that the search effort could be stepped up.

So far, at least seven bodies have been recovered. An eighth body was reported found but not confirmed.

Some of the bodies recovered so far have been fully clothed, including a flight attendant still wearing her AirAsia uniform. That could indicate the Airbus was intact when it hit the water and also support the aerodynamic stall theory.

The Airbus A320-200, carrying 162 people, fell from the sky while trying to climb above stormy weather early on Sunday, during a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

The plane was travelling at 9,753 metres and had asked to fly at 11,582 metres to avoid bad weather. When air traffic controllers granted permission for a rise to 10,363 metres a few minutes later, they received no response. The pilots did not issue a distress signal.

Online discussion among pilots has centred on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled.

Strong wind and waves hampered the search, and with visibility at less than a kilometre, the air operation was called off yesterday, though ships continued scouring the relatively shallow waters of the Java Sea.

A team of 47 Indonesian Navy divers were not able to fly out to warships at the crash site yesterday. “They will try again this morning,” said Siahala Alamsyah, a naval officer involved in the search.

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A fourth body is brought to a police hospital for identification with the help of relatives' DNA. Photo: Xinhua

Bodies recovered from the Java Sea are being taken in numbered coffins to Surabaya, where relatives of the victims have gathered, for identification. Authorities have been collecting DNA from the relatives to help identify the bodies.

Four bodies have so far been transferred to land from warships. Three more are set to be moved today.

“Three helicopters are getting ready to hoist three remaining bodies from the navy ship to Pangkalan Bun,” Sandi said, adding that rescuers managed to bring the first two bodies to the town last night.

Most of the 162 people on board were Indonesians. No survivors have been found.

Relatives, many of whom collapsed in grief when they saw the first grim television pictures confirming their fears on Tuesday, held prayers at a crisis centre at Surabaya airport.

The Indonesian captain, a former air force fighter pilot, had 6,100 flying hours under his belt and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, according to the airline, which is 49 per cent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia.

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Mourners hold candles at a vigil for the victims of the AirAsia crash early on New Year's Day. Photo: AP

The co-pilot was French and had 2,275 hours of flight experience.

Out of the 155 passengers onboard, all were Indonesian save for three South Koreans, and one each from Singapore, Malaysia and Britain.

Three airline disasters involving Malaysian-affiliated carriers in less than a year have dented confidence in the country’s aviation industry and spooked travellers.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing in March on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew and has not been found. On July 17, the same airline’s Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

On board Flight QZ8501 were 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia and Britain. The co-pilot was French.

The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002.

With additional reporting from Agence France-Presse


 

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Search for missing AirAsia black box recorders could 'take a week'


By Fergus Jensen and Gayatri Suroyo
PANGKALAN BUN/SURABAYA, Indonesia Thu Jan 1, 2015 4:28am EST

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Indonesian military personnel carry caskets containing the remains of passengers onboard AirAsia flight QZ8501, recovered off the coast of Borneo, at a military base in Surabaya January 1, 2015. REUTERS-Athit Perawongmetha

(Reuters) - Divers waiting to inspect the possible wreck of an AirAsia Indonesia jet off Borneo were unable to resume operations because of heavy seas on Thursday and an aviation official said it could take a week to find the black box flight recorders.

Crews were on standby to descend to a large object detected by sonar on the ocean floor, lying just 30-50 meters (100-165 feet) deep. Rescuers believe it is the Airbus A320-200, which was carrying 162 people when it crashed on Sunday en route from the city of Surabaya to Singapore.

"I am hoping that the latest information is correct and aircraft has been found," airline boss Tony Fernandes tweeted on Thursday. "Please all hope together. This is so important."

But Toos Sanitiyoso, an air safety investigator with the National Committee for Transportation Safety, said the black box flight data and voice recorders could be found within a week, suggesting there was still doubt over the plane's location.

"The main thing is to find the main area of the wreckage and then the black box," he told reporters.

None of the tell-tale black box "pings" had been detected, he said.

"There are two steps of finding the black box. One is we try to find the largest portion of the wreckage," he said.

Divers would not be sent into the water without a target, search official Sunarbowo Sandi said.

"They wouldn't go in without it," he said. "The divers are not searching."

Frogman commander Lieutenant Edi Tirkayasa said the weather was making the operation extra hard.

"What is most difficult is finding the location where the plane fell - checking whether the aircraft is really there," he told Reuters.

"This is very difficult even with sophisticated equipment. With weather like this, who knows? We are still hopeful and optimistic that they'll find it. They must."

Investigators are working on a theory that the plane stalled as it climbed steeply to avoid a storm about 40 minutes into the flight.

So far, at least seven bodies have been recovered from waters near the suspected crash site, along with debris such a suitcase, an emergency slide and a life jacket.

The bodies are being taken in numbered coffins to Surabaya, where relatives of the victims have gathered, for identification. Authorities have been collecting DNA from relatives to help identify the bodies.

"We are asking universities to work with us - from the whole country," said Anton Castilani, executive director at Indonesia's disaster victims identification committee.

Most of those on board were Indonesians. No survivors have been found.

Relatives, many of whom collapsed in grief when they saw the first grim television pictures confirming their fears on Tuesday, held prayers at a crisis center at Surabaya airport.

"UNBELIEVABLY" STEEP CLIMB

The plane was traveling at 32,000 feet (9,753 meters) and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid bad weather. When air traffic controllers granted permission for a rise to 34,000 feet a few minutes later, they received no response.

A source close to the probe into what happened said radar data appeared to show that the aircraft made an "unbelievably" steep climb before it crashed, possibly pushing it beyond the Airbus A320's limits.

"It appears to be beyond the performance envelope of the aircraft," he said.

The source, who declined to be identified, added that more information was needed to come to a firm conclusion.

Online discussion among pilots has centered on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled.

Some of the bodies recovered so far have been fully clothed, including a flight attendant in her uniform. That could indicate the Airbus was intact when it hit the water and also support the aerodynamic stall theory.

The Indonesian captain, a former air force fighter pilot, had 6,100 flying hours under his belt and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, according to AirAsia Indonesia, which is 49-percent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia.

Three airline disasters involving Malaysian-affiliated carriers in less than a year have dented confidence in the country's aviation industry and spooked travelers.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared in March en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew and has not been found. On July 17, the same airline's Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

On board Flight QZ8501 were 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia and Britain. The co-pilot was French.

The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002.

Separately, an AirAsia Indonesia pilot was taken off flying duties on the route from Jakarta to the holiday island of Bali on Thursday after a urine test indicated traces of morphine.

"From our early interview with the pilot, he said he was hospitalized for typhus and was infused from Dec 26-29," airline CEO Sunu Widyatmoko told reporters.

"Until today, he still consumes medication. One of them is Actifed (a cough syrup). In a narcotics test, cough medication could cause the false alarm of drug intake."

(Additional reporting by Michael Taylor, Cindy Silviana, Wilda Asmarini, Gayatri Suroyo, Kanupriya Kapoor, Nicholas Owen and Charlotte Greenfield in JAKARTA/SURABAYA, Jane Wardell in SYDNEY and Anshuman Daga in SINGAPORE; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Mark Bendeich and Kim Coghill)


 

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AirAsia flight QZ8501: First victim positively identified as Surabaya teacher


Date January 1, 2015 - 9:28PM

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The mother of Hayati Lutfiah Hamid, centre, cries upon receiving her daughter's remains at the police hospital in Surabaya. Photo: AFP

Disaster Victim Identification crews have positively identified victim 001 of AirAsia's crashed flight QZ8501.

Hayati Lutfiah Hamid, 47, an elementary school teacher from Surabaya, was travelling to Singapore for a holiday with her daughter, husband and mother-in-law when the plane crashed with 162 people on board on December 28.

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BODIES ARRIVE: Indonesian soldiers carry coffins containing victims of the AirAsia flight QZ8501 crash at the Indonesian Air Force Military Base in Surabaya. Photo: Getty Images

Shortly after the positive identification, an ambulance backed up to the police morgue in Surabaya, the police chief said a few words, and Ms Hayati's body and possessions were handed over first to AirAsia chief executive Sunu Widyatmoko, who handed them directly to Ms Hayati's uncle, her closest living relative.

At that moment, the heavens opened and rain belted down as two female relatives stood pouring tears at the rear of the police station. They were comforted by the mayor of Surabaya, Tri Rismaharini.

Four more bodies arrived in Surabaya on Thursday, meaning that five are at the police morgue awaiting identification — two females and three males. One more female of unknown age has been recovered from the ocean and is awaiting an airlift from Pangkalanbun, Borneo, the closest port to the crash site, to Surabaya.

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Members of Indonesian search and rescue team carry the body of a victim of the AirAsia flight QZ8501 crash at Iskandar Airbase on January 01, 2015 in Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo: Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images

Police disaster investigation chief Budiyono announced late on Thursday that a meeting of forensic experts had made the positive identification of Ms Hayati based on fingerprint evidence, as well as items of jewellery and identity documents found on the body.

Attempts to positively identify body 002 - a young man - have so far failed.

A neighbour told local media that Ms Hayati and her husband, Djoko Suseno, a used car dealer, had planned to travel to Mecca with their daughter to fulfil the Haj pilgrimage, but that the fifth grade girl had wanted to take a holiday to Singapore first.

Ms Hayati's daughter, husband and mother-in-law are now missing, presumed dead.

No news has emerged from the dive site about 105 nautical miles off Pangkalanbun the island of Borneo, where changeable weather may have thwarted once more hopes that divers would be able to access the site of the wreckage for the first time.

A Singapore-based ship with sophisticated under-sea sonar also arrived on Wednesday and may have more luck mapping the dive site.

Weather reports late on Thursday also suggested the weather was clearing up at the site.


 

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AirAsia Flight QZ8501: Search teams promise 'all-out' effort to find remaining passengers' bodies

Jan 01, 2015 02:39
By Chris Richards

The vow came as the weather in the Java Sea off Indonesia cleared and international investigators joined attempts to locate the fuselage of the ill-fated aircraft, which went down with 162 passengers and crew on board

A member of the search team looks out over the waters of the Java Sea in Surabaya VIEW GALLERY

Search teams hunting the wreck of doomed AirAsia Flight QZ8501 have promised to go "all-out" to find the remaining bodies of the plane's 162 passengers and crew.

The vow came as the weather in the Java Sea off Indonesia cleared and international investigators joined attempts to locate the fuselage of the ill-fated aircraft.

Seven bodies, including a flight attendant in her red AirAsia uniform, have so far been retrieved from the Airbus A320-200, which crashed on Sunday in the sea near Borneo en route from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore.

Search and rescue official Sunarbowo Sandi said: "The weather is clear today.

"We're making an all-out effort to search for bodies and locate the fuselage."

The crashed jet was found upside down on the sea bed on Tuesday.

The plane, located by sonar, was said to be largely intact about 100 feet down.

Four bodies have been taken ashore from warships, while three more are set to be moved Thursday.


 
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