Found
One wouldn’t think that news of wreckage and multiple bodies being pulled from the sea could be classified as “good.”
But given what we already very strongly suspected—which was that AirAsia Flight QZ8501 had crashed, and that the likelihood of survivors was very poor—and given the continued unknown whereabouts of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the news that the wreckage of QZ8501 has been found and that 40 bodies have been recovered so far can be considered “good” in the relative sense, despite its horrific nature.
There was always more hope of finding this plane than of locating Flight 370. We didn’t know much about QZ8591, but at least we knew that it had encountered bad weather, and that it had probably gone down suddenly in waters that were less than 150 feet deep. Had it not been for the mystery of Flight 370, it would have assumed that QZ8501 would have been found in due time. That is what has happened, and there is every reason to suppose that the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder will be recovered and we will learn the most likely cause of the disaster.
The plane was found about six miles from where it lost radio contact with the ground, and there are reports that a plane-shaped “shadow” can be seen under the water. In addition:
The aircraft’s last request – to climb higher to avoid a storm – was turned down…
Geoffrey Thomas, editor of AirlineRatings.com, told Sky News: “We have a radar plot which shows the plane actually climbing through 36,300ft – it wasn’t given permission to do that.
“It also shows that its speed had decayed by 134mph and dropped dramatically to a level where it couldn’t sustain flight.”
I heard a supposed aviation expert on some cable news program saying that pilots usually are steered around storms, not above them, because the storm ceiling is often high and gaining altitude can cause more instability rather than less. Any pilots out there might be able to say whether that is correct.
RIP to all the victims, and prayers for their grieving families and friends.
As a follow up to my comment on the previous thread on this air tragedy, here’s a link to an article which describes exactly what I was talking about regarding the lack of stick and rudder skills in airline cockpits:
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/12/air_asia_8501_when_will_we_learn.html
My interest is a bit more than this just being news. I had a PPL a LONG time ago but gave it up due to a new family and expenses, and a relatively low academic salary. Still have a passion for aviation, and just like my long gone 8-year old self, I still look up when a plane passes overhead. My flying nowadays is limited to the computer, though still fun, e.g. http://simviation.com/hjg/main.htm 🙂
Not a good year for Malaysians.
Three jets in one year (Putin would have preferred more).
And those “Geodisasters”. They’re not even officially in the, Ring Of Fire. Yet, still get fallout from Indonesia and Philippines. 2004 Tsunami among the worst.
God Bless them.
neo: “I heard a supposed aviation expert on some cable news program saying that pilots usually are steered around storms, not above them, because the storm ceiling is often high and gaining altitude can cause more instability rather than less. Any pilots out there might be able to say whether that is correct.”
That’s correct. In a very few cases you might be able to go over the storm. The normal procedure is to request to steer around the worst part of the storm, which can be determined by the radar echo. Better to be a bit lower in more dense air (bigger margin between high and low speed stalls) and to pick a “soft spot” to penetrate.
This accident, unfortunately, looks like a case of pilot error. I would like to know more about the pilots and their backgrounds. As I’ve written here before, devout Muslims don’t make good candidates for safe pilots because of their doctrine of “inshallah.” (Allah willing.) They tend to trust in Allah rather than in themselves.
That, of course, is speculation on my part. The black box and voice recorder, if found, will provide much more information.
Neo,
Storm clouds can be 70,000 feet high. No way an airliner is flying over the storm.
Years ago I was flying from Seattle to Wash. DC and we were flying at 35,000 feet. To the north of us were huge thunder clouds rising way above us. The plane just outran the approaching bad weather.
Good article here about the rapid growth of air travel in Southeast Asia and the need for trained pilots there:
And then there’s this:
Hey physicsguy, is that freeware? Ive been going to http://www.flightsim.com/ for stuff, but Im a cheep kinda guy that some of what Id like to add to my FSX collection isnt available to me. So far Ive been to your historic Jetliners group and cant seem to download anything. 😛
Ray: “Storm clouds can be 70,000 feet high. No way an airliner is flying over the storm.”
I have flown over thunderstorms. They can be low enough to fly over in the early stages of growth or in colder weather systems where they don’t get above 30,000′. In the tropics where this accident happened, most thunderstorms do grow to over 40,000′ because of the extra heat for lifting the moisture and a higher tropopause.
Jet airliners have altitude performance limits. As they go higher and the air becomes less dense, the limit between a slow stall due to interrupted airflow over the wings and a mach buffet stall (a high speed stall where the airflow is interrupted by the speed of the air over the wing reaching the speed of sound and creating a sonic wave) is reduced. When the plane gets into a situation where any change to pitch or power setting will induce a stall – either high speed or low speed – that is called the “Coffin Corner.” If the airplane does a slow speed stall, it will drop like a rock and probably spin. Jet airliners can recover from a spin if there is sufficient altitude and pilot skill. But they are avoided by all prudent pilots. If the airplane enters a mach buffet stall, several things can happen.
1. The airplane may come apart because it exceeds the design stress limits.
2. The airplane will become uncontrollable and will do unexpected things like flips and inverted spins.
3. With luck the airplane may enter a normal spin that can be recovered from with some difficulty.
Prudent pilots avoid the “Coffin Corner.”
Flying into severe turbulence at very high altitudes is best avoided because the turbulence reduces margins of controllability and speed control.
All that said, we will have to wait for the investigation to know what happened.
That they have found the wreckage so quickly just points up even more how mysterious and suspicious the fate of Flight 370 was and is.
Neo, JJ has predictably given good answers to your question. It is practically an article of faith that you do not try to out climb a thunderstorm. In fact in most cases, if you cannot circumvent it, you are better served to tighten your seat belt, grit you teeth, and go through at a moderate altitude.
There was a comment about the quality of pilots. I had a fair bit of experience training “third world” pilots for an airline manufacturer–not a U.S. one. The training for them was very heavily, almost exclusively, oriented toward managing the auto-pilot for everything. The U.S. pilots who worked for this company were oriented in the opposite direction; we wanted them to hand fly, while programming the flight direction and management system for familiarity. A real difference in philosophy. There is no question in my mind as to how foreign pilots of Airbus aircraft, who no doubt get their training from Europeans, are oriented.
Another complication is that the luxury of having military trained pilots who all had some experience with hand flying and acrobatic maneuvering has past. (BTW some of the best pilots I have encountered were Canadians who started in the “bush” as youngsters. There may have been some Darwinian principles involved in their surviving to the airline stage of their careers.)
I do not mean to smear the pilots in this case; because we do not know the circumstances. But, I do believe that this philosophical disconnect has played a role in other accidents.
One final thought. The notorious Air France crash several years ago bore some resemblances. Thunderstorms in a warm, tropical environment in which the icing level would be much higher than normal, followed by a malfunction of the pitot (airspeed related) heating system. A known problem with the Airbus. That was supposedly rectified, however.
Harry,
Yes, 100% free. Everything is on the download page, and most will work fine in FSX. The installation is a step-by-step process; instructions in the forum.
Is your virus protection blocking the downloads??
I’m already a nervous flyer as it is. All this discussion about instability in thunderstorms has made me even less willing to fly unless absolutely necessary. I always assumed that the only real danger in thunderstorms was the possibility of losing my lunch. It never occurred to me that the plane could become unstable and crash in turbulence.
Sangiovese: “It never occurred to me that the plane could become unstable and crash in turbulence.”
I have posed a worst case scenario. All well-trained airline pilots work to avoid that situation. You have to remember that the pilots are the first to arrive at the scene of the accident. 🙂
They do not have a death wish.
In spite of these two recent accidents in SE Asia, flying on an airliner is much safer than the trip to the airport. Keep that in mind when you have to fly.