• Bravo's Jaime Primak Aboard Plane That Skidded Off Runway at LGA

    Several passengers no doubt had their greatest travel fear realized this morning when an MD-88 skidded off the runway at LaGuardia Airport. Thankfully, it crashed into a fence that may have actually helped to stop the plane, preventing it from landing in the water. At the time of the crash, about 3 inches of fresh snow had fallen, but a blustery winter mix made visibility really difficult. Jaime Primak, a PR heavyweight and star of Bravo's 'Jersey Belle,' was on board.

  • Indonesian Officials: AirAsia Plane Climbed Too Fast, Likely Stalled Out

    About a week after finding and recovering the black boxes from AirAsia Flight 8501, investigators are beginning to put together a solid idea of what led to the demise of the plane. It had been reported almost immediately after the flight went missing that storms in the area and bad weather conditions had prompted the pilot to ask to climb from 32,000 feet up to 38,000 feet but was initially denied. Indonesian officials are now saying that the pilot did climb 6,000 feet in just one minute, and that likely caused the airbus to stall out.

  • Divers Find Black Boxes from AirAsia Flight 8501

    Investigators in charge of finding out what caused the demise of AirAsia Flight 8501 a little more than two weeks ago have just retrieved a major piece to the puzzle. On Monday, Jan. 12, divers recovered the flight data recorder from beneath a wing at the bottom of the Java Sea. They also have located the cockpit voice recorder about 105 feet below the water, buried beneath wreckage. Divers are reportedly working to free that second black box from beneath heavy wreckage. Flight 8501 left Surabaya for Singapore two Sundays ago only to find itself caught in horrible weather. The pilot had asked for permission to climb to a higher altitude and, by the time that permission was granted a few minutes later, all contact had already been lost with the craft. Indonesian officials have speculated that icing may have built up, causing the engine to stall out and leading to the plane plummeting into the sea. Everything at this point is sheer speculation, but two things are certain, though. There were six other planes flying in exactly the same storm as Flight 8501 and they made it safely to their destinations, so this flight should not have even been in the air. AirAsia is permitted to run the Surabaya-to-Singapore route four days a week, and Sunday is not one of those days, so if they had been following their legal guidelines this plane would never have been in the air, let alone lost. Investigators are hopeful that they will get answers about what happened from these boxes.

  • Icy Conditions May Have Damaged AirAsia Flight 8501's Engine, Causing Crash

    As pieces of AirAsia Flight 8501 are slowly being recovered from the bottom of the Java Sea, investigators are beginning to put together an idea of what may have happened to the lost plane. We have already learned that the weather, quite obviously, played a big role in the demise of this craft, and while some question whether or not it should have even been flying, there were six other planes nearby that safely navigated through similar conditions. That seems to indicate that perhaps Flight 8501 had another issue, and an Indonesian government agency is the first to publicly lean that way. According to the Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics, also known as BMKG, icing may have damaged the plane's engine, ultimately causing it to stall out and then crash to the sea below it. As it stands now, actually recovering bodies and wreckage has been a difficult task because of driving, monsoon-like rains and 12-foot waves in the search area. Searchers are finding what they need to, but it has been a slower process than officials would like. We also learned this past weekend that Flight 8501 never should have been in the air on Sunday morning. AirAsia is permitted to run the Surabaya-Singapore route four days a week each week, but Sunday is not an approved day. The carrier is now being investigated because of this and could ultimately be grounded for breaking this rule. The flight's black box, which contains the cockpit voice recorder as well as the flight data recorder, has yet to be discovered.

  • Bodies, Debris Recovered from AirAsia Flight 8501 Crash Site

    Families of the 162 passengers aboard AirAsia Flight 8501 are grieving this morning, as it has been confirmed that the wreckage has been found in the ocean about 6 miles from the Airbus's last-known location. About halfway into the two-hour flight, the crew encountered extremely bad weather early Sunday morning, Dec. 28, and when Capt. Iriyanto requested permission to climb to a higher altitude, he was denied. Two minutes later, the controller told him that it was safe to proceed to 38,000 feet, but got no response. Loved ones held out hope for more than two days, only to have the worst confirmed early this morning, Dec. 30. AirAsia group CEO Tony Fernandes has attempted to handle this tragedy with great care and has been nothing but supportive and empathetic toward the families who were waiting for official word. Today, 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." He has since flown back to Surabaya to be with the grieving families. He also has chartered a flight to take them out to the airspace over the Java Sea to say their final goodbyes to loved ones in the area where they lost their lives.

  • Investigators Believe AirAsia Flight 8501 'At the Bottom of the Sea'

    For a little while, it seemed like debris from AirAsia's Flight 8501 might have been spotted floating in the Java Sea, but that possibility has now been dismissed. The work horse flight disappeared from radar more than 36 hours ago after asking to alter its course due to bad weather. A few minutes later the Airbus 320-200 disappeared from radar and has not been seen or heard from since. Unfortunately, as time goes on, officials have seen less reason to believe that the outcome of this situation will be anything less than grim. Indonesia's search and rescue chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo has admitted that, "Based on the coordinates that we know, the evaluation would be that any estimated crash position is in the sea, and that the hypothesis is the plane is at the bottom of the sea." That is obviously not the reality the families of the 162 people on board Flight 8501 want to believe. Their loved ones departed Surabaya, Indonesia, Sunday morning, Dec. 28, headed for Singapore, a trip that usually takes about two hours. The plane instead vanished amid thick storm clouds and thunderstorms that made travel conditions difficult.

  • Search for Missing AirAsia Flight 8501 Suspended Due to Bad Weather

    2014 has proven to be an especially tragic year for air travel in Southeast Asia, and in the last 24 hours it has been compounded by the loss of another plane. AirAsia Flight 8501 vanished over the Indonesian Sea Sunday, Dec. 28, and as of now there is no trace of the craft. The flight, carrying 162 people, departed Surabaya for Singapore, but not long into the trip the pilot asked to change his course. At 6:13 a.m., Flight 8501 was reportedly in the middle of dense fog and thunderstorm and the pilot asked to gain speed and altitude in an attempt to fly over the clouds. The flight was last seen on the radar at 6:16 a.m., and after several hours of searching efforts to find the missing plane have been halted until daylight. The Airbus A320 took off from Surabaya, Indonesia's second largest airport, with an Indonesian captain and a French co-pilot, five cabin crew members and 155 passengers, including 16 children and one infant. According to an official statement by AirAsia, most of the passengers were Indonesians. There were also three South Koreans, a Malaysian, a British national and his 2-year-old Singaporean daughter. The captain reportedly has more than 20,000 flying hours and the first officer has 2,275 flying hours. At Surabaya airport, families were gathered together in a small room, attempting to comfort each other as they await word on the fate of the flight. AirAsia is 49 percent owned by Malaysia, which makes this the third ill-fated flight of this calendar year for that country.
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