• AirAsia Flight 8501's Pilot Was Out of His Seat When Doomed Plane Lost Control

    It has been almost two weeks since the black boxes for AirAsia Flight 8501 have been recovered and investigators are working hard to not only determine the cause of the crash, but also to piece together those last few minutes of the ill-fated flight. Flight 8501 plunged into the Java Sea on December 28 killing all 162 on board. Bad weather is believed to have played a significant part in the crash but now it's also looking like a mechanical problem may have even complicated things more.

  • 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.

  • Tail Has Been Found for Missing AirAsia Plane

    Finally, conditions for the search and recovery of lost AirAsia Flight 8501 have improved enough for divers to spot the tail of the plane. It has been located about 20 miles from the craft's last known location and resting at the bottom of the Java Sea. This is particularly promising news because if it is the right side of the tail, then the black box will likely be recovered with it. That recovery is crucial in helping investigators understand exactly what happened in the final moments of the doomed flight. "We've found the tail that has been our main target," Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the search and rescue agency, said at a news conference in Jakarta. The tail was identified by divers after it was spotted by an underwater machine using a sonar scan, Soelistyo said. He displayed underwater photographs showing partial lettering on the sunken object compared with a picture of an intact Airbus A320-200 in AirAsia livery. "I can confirm that what we found was the tail part from the pictures," he said, adding that the team "now is still desperately trying to locate the black box," according to a report by Reuters. So far, monsoon-like rain and minimal visibility has made recovering the bodies of the 162 passengers on board difficult, and divers have been frustrated to know that they are so close yet have not been able to fully do their job.

  • 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.
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