Fears after Jeddah-bound AirAsia flight turns back

 

There was frenzy on social media when flight tracker FlightRadar24’s website showed an AirAsia X flight from Kuala Lumpur to Jeddah turning back to Kuala Lumpur and circling in the ocean.

With heightened sensitivities after multiple aviation disasters in the past year, Twitter users swiftly jumped onto the case with the hashtag #D7172 only to be later told to keep calm and carry on.

"There is no emergency on flight D7172. They just needed to get weight down to make a safe landing.

"A limited number of aircrafts are able to dump fuel. If you can’t dump fuel, you have to burn it to reduce weight. More fuel equals longer burning," Flightradar24 explained on Twitter.

There is no emergency on flight #D7172. They just needed to get weight down to make a safe landing http://t.co/8su11KHZmu
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) February 8, 2015

 Confirming this, AirAsia group CEO Tony Fernandes told Bernama that the Jeddah-bound flight has returned to Kuala Lumpur International Airport and there is "nothing out of normal".

The plane landed at KLIA at 5.40pm.

"It could have continued (its journey) to Jeddah, but we felt it was better for it to return, nothing out of the normal," he said.

He later told AFP that there was a problem with one auto-thrust but maintained the plane for fit for flight.

Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said there was a technical glitch.

"I was informed D7172 with technical problem circling over Straits of Malacca. The plane has safely landed in KLIA2” he said on Twitter.

I was informed #D7172 with tech prob circling over Straits of Malacca. The plane has safely landed in klia #AirAsia
— Liow Tiong Lai (@liowtionglai) February 8, 2015

 In a statement later, Air Asia X said the turn back was due to a glitch after take off and was merely safety precaution.

The flight took off for Jeddah with a different plane at 7.23pm, it said.

AirAsia is still reeling from the crash of Surabaya-Singapore flight QZ8501 which killed all 162 on board.

The death toll for Taiwanese TransAsia's GE235 crash last week is now 40.

Investigator reveals AirAsia jet’s alarms ‘screaming’ before crash:

Warning alarms in AirAsia flight QZ8501 were "screaming" as the pilots desperately tried to stabilise the plane just before it plunged into the Java Sea last month, a crash investigator said today.

The noise of several alarms – including one that indicated the plane was stalling – can be heard going off in recordings from the black box in the Airbus A320's cockpit, the investigator told AFP, requesting anonymity.

"The warning alarms, we can say, were screaming, while in the background they (the pilot and co-pilot) were busy trying to recover," the investigator said, adding the warnings were going off "for some time".

The investigator, from Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC), added that the pilots' voices were drowned out by the sound of the alarms.

The revelation came a day after Indonesian Transport Minister Ignasius Jonan said that the plane had climbed abnormally fast before stalling and plunging into the sea, during a flight on December 28 in stormy weather from Indonesia's Surabaya to Singapore.

"In the final minutes, the plane climbed at a speed which was beyond normal," the minister told reporters.

The plane crashed in shallow waters with 162 people on board, but so far just 53 bodies have been recovered.

Divers have been struggling for a week against rough seas and strong currents to reach the plane's main fuselage, which was spotted on the seabed and is thought to contain the bulk of the remaining passengers and crew.

The two black boxes – the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder – were recovered last week after a lengthy search, and investigators are expected to complete a preliminary report next week.

As well as the cockpit voice recorder, the NTSC is examining a wealth of information in the flight data recorder, which monitors every major part of the plane.

They are focusing on the possibility of human or aircraft error, after ruling out terrorism following an analysis of the cockpit voice recorder.

Committee head Tatang Kurniadi said that the preliminary report into the crash would be completed on Tuesday, a month after the accident. He said the full report would not be released publicly but the media would be told some of its contents.

There was a huge international hunt for the crashed plane, involving ships from several countries including the United States and China.

All but seven of those on board the flight were Indonesian. The foreign nationals were from South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Britain and France. – AFP, January 21, 2015.

- See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/investigator-reveals-airasia-jets-alarms-screaming-before-crash#sthash.5TXdC0y8.dpuf

AirAsia flight to Chennai diverted due to thick fog

Flights affected were those scheduled to land or take off from 6am to 8am today.

FMT

NEW DELHI: An AirAsia flight from Kuala Lumpur to Chennai in Tamil Nadu was among few other flights delayed and diverted to nearby cities due to thick fog engulfing the airport in the South Indian city today.

A check on flight data revealed that AK11, which was scheduled to land in Chennai at 7.25am local time, was diverted to Colombo, Sri Lanka.

The aircraft carrying 168 passengers later arrived safely at 11.15am local time when visibility got better.

“The rare fog condition created some chaos in Chennai airport for the past few days. AirAsia was not the only flight that was affected.

“Flights which were delayed or diverted were those scheduled to land or take off from 6am to 8am today,” said an official based in Chennai airport.

Thick fog condition is a common problem often faced by northern Indian airports during winter season, but not in southern Indian cities.

Asked why it was diverted to Colombo, the official said every airport would have some space to absorb flight diversion and it was often the closest and the available ones that would be chosen.

“It’s a common practice in the aviation industry,” he told Bernama.

A Times of India report yesterday said the visibility started to dip about midnight on Saturday to as low as 50 metres and since then, several flights scheduled in and out of Chennai were affected.

It quoted an unnamed official from the Meteorological Office as saying that the fog was rare in Chennai but condensation of water due to a combination of northerly winds and high moisture levels of air affected visibility for about five days in a year in the first two weeks of January.

Hence, similar conditions were likely to prevail for a few more days, he was quoted as saying in the report.

– BERNAMA

AirAsia: We followed SOP on 'dead engine flight'

AirAsia Indonesia said it followed all standard operating procedures by returning a Bandung-bound plane to the apron after a system shut down.

The engines on the Surabaya-Bandung flight QZ7633 carrying 161 passengers reportedly died just before take-off yesterday.

However, AirAsia clarified that it was not the engines that died but the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) which automatically turns off in certain circumstances as part of its safety feature.

The APU powers up the pneumatic systems on the ground before the engines start, it said in a statement.

It shuts down in the event of overspeeding, low oil pressure or overheating, AirAsia Indonesia said.

"Further checks were completed by our engineering team according to their standard operating procedues.

"After the final check was completed, the aircraft was released to fly about an hour later.

"Despite the sensationalised coverage, there were no safety issues and the aircraft landed safely in Bandung," AirAsia Indonesia chief executive officer Sunu Widyatmoko said.

An Airbus A320-200, QZ7633 is the same make as ill-fated QZ8501 which crashed in bad weather on Dec 28.

A total 34 bodies of the 162 on board have been retrieved from the Karimata Strait. The search continues.

AirAsia had Singapore approval for daily Surabaya flights

Indonesia suspends airline's Sunday flights from Surabaya for violation of permit

FMT

SINGAPORE: In the wake of Indonesia’s suspension of AirAsia Indonesia’s Surabaya-Singapore flight on Sundays, civil aviation authorities here said that the airline had received Singapore approval for daily flights until March.

The airline had been operating the flight four times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

However Indonesian officials said the Sunday service had not been authorised and went beyond their permit. The Sunday service has been suspended pending a review and in the face of a possible threat to revoke the airline’s licence.

Bernama reports that the Civil Aviation Authority here and Changi Airport Group had said the airline had received Singapore approval for winter season daily flights from October to March. Before an airline can launch a service between two points, it needs to obtain approval of its flight schedules from the respective civil aviation authorities at each end of its flight routing separately.

These daily flights were approved as there were available air traffic rights under the bilateral ASA and the slots at Changi Airport were available.

Airlines may adjust their flight frequencies in the course of a season in response to market demand or operational requirements.

Basarnas Confident They've Found AirAsia QZ8501

By Azeman Ariffin

JAKARTA, Jan 3 (Bernama) -- The search and rescue (SAR) operation for the AirAsia flight QZ8501, which has entered its seventh day, has so far found 30 bodies of victims and two big objects believed to be from the passenger plane.

Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) chief Bambang Soelistyo said based on the size and types of the two objects found on the sea bed, it was strongly believed that they were the wreck of the AirAsia jet that crashed on Dec 28.

"With the discovery of an oil spill and two big objects, we believe that this is the AirAsia passenger jet that we have been looking for," he told a press conference which was broadcast live by several local television channels.

He said the biggest of the two objects measured about 10 metres by five metres and both objects were found about 30 metres below sea surface.

Meanwhile, of the 30 bodies of victims recovered so far, 17 were men and 13 were women and the bodies were taken to Bhayangkara Hospital in Surabaya for identification process.

The AirAsia Indonesia Flight QZ8501 with 162 people on board crashed while flying from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore.

Those on board the flight comprise 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, a Singaporean, a Malaysian, a Briton and a French.

7 More Bodies Recovered From AirAsia Crash, 16 Total

By EILEEN NG and ROBIN McDOWELL Associated Press

More ships arrived Friday with sensitive equipment to hunt for the fuselage of AirAsia Flight 8501 and the more than 145 people still missing since it crashed into the sea five days ago.

Indonesia's Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said efforts would be stepped up as long as the weather allowed.

"We will focus on underwater detection," he said, adding ships from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the U.S. had been on the scene since before dawn Friday to try to pinpoint wreckage and the all-important black boxes? the flight data and cockpit voice recorders.

The Airbus A320 crashed into the Java Sea on Sunday with 162 people on board. Sixteen bodies have been recovered so far. Seven were announced Friday morning, six of which were found by a U.S. Navy ship, said Suryadi B. Supriyadi, operation coordinator for the National Search and Rescue Agency.

Nine planes, many with metal detecting equipment, were also scouring a 13,500 square kilometer (8,380 square mile) area off Pangkalan Bun, the closest town on Borneo island to the search area. Two Japanese ships with three helicopters were on their way to the area, Soelistyo said.

But he said bad weather, which has hindered the search the last several days, was a worry. A drizzle and light clouds covered the area Friday morning, but rain, strong winds and high waves up to 4 meters (13 feet) were forecast until Sunday. Strong sea currents have also kept debris moving.

Soelistyo estimated the fuselage was at a depth of 25 meters to 30 meters (about 80 feet to 100 feet), and vowed to recover the bodies of "our brothers and sisters ... whatever conditions we face."

So far, one victim of the crash has been returned to her family Thursday ? the first of many painful reunions to come.

Hayati Lutfiah Hamid's identity was confirmed by fingerprints and other means, said Col. Budiyono of East Java's Disaster Victim Identification Unit.

Her body, in a dark casket topped with flowers, was handed over to family members during a brief ceremony at a police hospital in Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city and the site where the plane took off. A relative cried as she placed both hands against the polished wood.

The coffin was then taken to a village and lowered into a muddy grave, following Muslim obligations requiring bodies to be buried quickly. An imam said a simple prayer as about 150 people gathered in the drizzling rain, and red flowers were sprinkled over the mound of wet dirt topped by a small white tombstone.

The longer the search takes, the more corpses will decompose and the farther debris will scatter.

Aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas in Australia said there's a chance the plane hit the water largely intact, and that many passengers remain inside it.

He added that bodies recovered so far would have come out with a breach in the fuselage. "But most passengers still should have had their seat belts on, particularly as the plane was going into weather. The captain would have still had the seat belt sign on."

It's unclear what brought the plane down about halfway into its two-hour flight to Singapore. The jet's last communication indicated the pilots were worried about bad weather. They sought permission to climb above threatening clouds but were denied because of heavy air traffic. Four minutes later, the airliner disappeared from the radar without issuing a distress signal.

Tony Fernandes to escort family of QZ8501 crew member to Palembang

One AirAsia flight QZ8501 flight attendant's body has been recovered and if her remains are confirmed to be Khairunnisa Haidar Fauzie, the low-cost carrier's chief Tan Sri Tony Fernandes will escort her family home to Palembang.

Fernandes, who is AirAsia group chief executive officer, said this today in his tweet: "If our beautiful and wonderful crew is identified, we will go from Surabaya to Palembang with her parents. Heartbreaking soul destroying (sic)."

He may be making the trip very soon, as Indonesian news portal Detik.com reported this afternoon that three of the bodies recovered since Tuesday had been identified. This is based on identification found on them.

Khairunnisa, 22, was one of them. The other two named in the Detik.com report are Hayati Lutfiah Hamid from Tegalsari in Surabaya, and Kevin Alexander Soetjipto from Malang City, who was a university student in Australia.

Khairunnisa joined AirAsia last year. She is the youngest and only daughter among three siblings and had studied law.

Yesterday, when authorities reported that one female body clad in the red AirAsia uniform had been found, her family hoped that it was her.

Her father Haidar Fauzie and brother M. Ikhsan Nul Kamil said that their family have accepted that she was gone and wanted her body found.

Khairunnisa was reportedly one of two female crew members onboard flight QZ8501, with senior flight attendant Wanti Setiawati. The flight had seven AirAsia staff onboard comprising the pilot, co-pilot, four cabin crew and a technician.

Flight QZ8501 crashed into the Java Sea early Sunday morning in bad weather while flying from Surabaya to Singapore with 155 passengers, including 17 children and one infant.

It was reported that seven bodies had been recovered and identification process were under way once they were sent to Surabaya, where families have gathered to identify their loved ones.

Detik.com reported today that authorities had taken DNA samples from 153 family members of the passengers. The Immigration department was sharing data from the passengers' passports to assist the identification process.

Meanwhile, Fernandes also tweeted that there was information that the plane had been found.

“I am hoping that the latest information is correct and aircraft has been found. Please all hope together. This is so important,” he said in a post at 1.51pm today.

The flight was carrying 155 passengers on board, including 16 children and one infant.

The passengers comprise 149 Indonesians, three South Koreans, one Singaporean, one Malaysian and one Briton. – January 1, 2015.

- See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/airasia-boss-to-escort-family-of-qz8501-stewardess-home-to-palembang#sthash.35qHXXvp.dpuf

First body returned to family in East Java

 

QZ8501 AirAsia's Surabaya-Singapore flight carrying 155 passengers and seven crew members on board went missing on Sunday morning after taking off from Surabaya in Java, Indonesia, at 5.20am local time.

Search and rescue (SAR) efforts have confirmed it crashed in the Karimata Straits between Belitung Island and Kalimantan and are concentrating on efforts to find survivors.

Malaysiakini brings you the live updates of information as it comes in.

---

Latest developments

• Divers not sent out due to bad weather
   
• Search for black boxes could 'take a week'
   
• No formaldehyde, no ice injected
   
• Bodies flown to Surabaya
   
• Three found, only one recovered
   
• Bad weather hampers search

LIVE REPORTS

10.32pm: Apart from Hayati Luthfi Hamid, who was buried today, the remains of six other passengers which were recovered in Karimata Strait had been transported in Bhayangkara Hospital this morning for immediate identification by Disaster Victim Identificiation Police Department of Republic of Indonesia (DVI POLRI).

In a statement late today, AirAsia Indonesia says the DVI team is now working on thorough identification which includes DNA check and forensics examination.

“Meanwhile, the search and rescue effort still continues. Indonesian Minister of Transportation has deployed five additional vessels to the searching area.

“To date, there are more than 90 vessels and aircraft from numerous countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, United States, involved in the operation.”

6pm: The first body from the plane crash that was found and identified has been returned to her family in East Java, reports Jakarta Post.

The body of Hayati Lutfiah Hamid was sent today to her family in Sedati district, Sidoarjo regency, East Java, from the hospital in Surabaya.

The East Java Police’s Disaster and Victim Identification division head Commander Budiyono says Hayati’s body was determined from an identification card which was found on her.

Her family also confirmed the necklace and bracelet found on the body as belonging to her.

East Java police chief Anas Yusuf says the forensic results and documents have been sent to the management team of AirAsia Indonesia.

Divers not sent out due to bad weather

3.35pm: Divers waiting to inspect the possible wreck of an AirAsia Indonesia jet off Borneo are unable to resume operations because of heavy seas today, reports Reuters.

Crews were on standby to descend to a large object detected by sonar on the ocean floor, lying just 30-50 metres (100-165 feet) deep.

Divers will not be sent into the water without a target, search official Sunarbowo Sandi is quoted as saying.

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

Frogman commander Lieutenant Edi Tirkayasa tells the news agency that the weather is 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 is quoted as saying.

"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."

Search for black boxes could 'take a week'

2.50pm: Air investigators say they hope to obtain the AirAsia Flight QZ8501 black boxes within a week, which will yield critical information about what happened to aircraft, reports Reuters.

"The main thing is to find the main area of the wreckage and then the black box," Indonesia's air safety investigator with the National Committee for Transportation Safety Toos Sanitiyoso is quoted as saying.

Sonar has detected a large object on the ocean floor in the Java Sea, just 30-50 metres’ deep, which authorities believe is the main wreckage of the ill-fated Air Asia plane.

However, divers are unable to conduct a full-scale operation due to poor weather today.

No formaldehyde, no ice injected

2.46pm: No formaldehyde was injected into the bodies and no ice was used in transporting the remains for identification to prevent contamination of DNA samples, Channel New Asia’s Indonesia correspondent Devianti Faridz reports.

According to Indonesian police, ointment is applied on the victims' fingers, which are then wrapped in plastic for ease of identification.

The clothes the victims are wearing are recorded down and their bodies cleansed before being placed in coffins.

Bodies flown to Surabaya

2.29pm: The first set of bodies are being flown to Surabaya today, Channel News Asia quotes Indonesian officials as saying.

Four of them – three women and a man – will be sent to Surabaya from Immanuddin Hopital in Pengkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan.

Recovered bodies are taken to Pengkalan Bun first, the closest naval base to the debris site of AirAsia Flight QZ8501, before being transported to Surabaya.

Three found, only one recovered

2.25pm: The Royal Malaysian Navy Chief Abdul Aziz Jaafar clarifies that of the three bodies discovered by KD Pahang yesterday, only one managed to be recovered.

"Regret to inform that out of the three bodies found by KD Pahang yesterday, only one was recovered today at 0815 due to rough sea (condition)," he says on Twitter.

More bodies found

12.15pm: Two more bodies have been found in Pengkalan Bun waters, off Central Kalimantan, taking the total count of those discovered so far to nine, reports Indonesian portal Tempo.

The two will eventually be flown to a hospital in Surabaya, after the ones already discovered are brought to the Pengkalan Bun naval base from the ship.

Earlier, there was a conflicting report from Singapore’s Today, which said a total of 10 bodies have been recovered so far.

Bad weather hampers search

12pm: Royal Malaysian Navy Chief Abdul Aziz Jaafar tweets that bad weather and sea condition are hampering the ongoing search and rescue operations.

He adds on his official Twitter account that the search area has been expanded to 13,500sqnm (150 x 90nm), double from yesterday's 6,160sqnm.

Another body recovered

11.40am: Another body from the debris site of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 has been recovered, reports New Straits Times.

"We cannot confirm whether the body is of a man or woman but I can tell you it is on it's way here now," Iskandar Airport commander Jhonson Henrico Simatpang is quoted as saying.

The body is being flown to Iskandar Airport at Pengkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan, the nearest naval base to the debris site.

9.42am: Singapore’s Today reports 10 bodies in total have been recovered from crash so far, citing Wall Street Journal.

Weather raises hopes

8.38am: According to Reuters, a break in bad weather raises hopes today that divers would be able to investigate what is believed to be the sunken wreck of an AirAsia jet off Borneo and retrieve the black boxes that should explain the cause of the crash.

So far, at least seven bodies have been recovered from waters near where sonar has detected a large, dark object on the ocean floor, lying just 30-50 metres (100-165 feet) deep, but heavy seas have so far prevented divers from investigating it.

"They will try again this morning," says Siahala Alamsyah, a naval officer involved in the search.

He says that on Wednesday night, bad weather had prevented a team of 47 Indonesian Navy divers from even flying out to warships at the crash site.

The plane's black box flight data and cockpit voice recorder should help solve the mystery of the crash.

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

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.

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.

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

QZ8501, MH370 is the rivalry between Airbus, Boeing

Former Prime Minister blames Boeing for not co-operating on the introduction of technology to make flying safer.

FMT

KUALA LUMPUR: The real mystery regarding AirAsia Indonesia’s QZ8501 and the still missing MH370, writes former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in his latest blog posting, is the rivalry between Airbus and Boeing.

Mahathir was extending his condolences to all families of passengers and crew on board AirAsia Indonesia flight QZ8501, and cited two articles.

He noted the first (See here for story) in Flight International magazine dated 14 – 20 Oct 2014 which carried an article entitled, “Searching for Answers.” Together was a small picture with MH370 and some material.

The article, added Mahathir, relates about “Another rift in the competitive landscape between Airbus and Boeing.” “It seems that while Airbus is ready to move forward with a deployable flight data and voice recorder system for commercial aircraft, Boeing which has installed deployable recorders on at least three military aircraft fleets, disagrees that the technology is appropriate or safe for commercial transport.”

The Airbus concept involved deploying one of the two sets of flight data and cockpit voice recorders in the event of a mid-air collision or impact with the ground, continued Mahathir. “The deployed unit includes a locator beacon, and is designed to float if the crash occurs in water.”

“Just imagine if this recorder and beacon is installed on the AirAsia Indonesia aircraft or MH370, we would not have to search the oceans for the planes.”

He could not understand why Boeing was against it. The article said, “If either the Malaysian or the French airlines (which crashed in 2009) were equipped with a deployable flight recorder, the narrative of the search would likely be different.”

The article was written before the loss of QZ8501.

An article in FlightGlobal.com of December 2006 reports, said Mahathir, that Boeing had received a US patent for a system that allows seizure of an aircraft by remote control as a means to prevent terrorist hijacking.

“Boeing had made no comment on its powerful capability. And MH370 has not been found till now. And now Boeing seems to be unwilling to make finding lost aircraft easier and faster, possibly saving lives as well.”

The mystery, warned Mahathir, deepens!

Tragic end to story of AirAsia’s Nisa

Khairunisa, known to her friends as Nisa, was identified because her name tag was reportedly still attached to her uniform.

FMT

KUALA LUMPUR: The body of a former law student, Khairunisa Haidar Fauzi, who was following her dreams of becoming a stewardess after joining AirAsia last year, was among seven bodies identified so far, said the Daily Mail Australia in a Mail Online report which quotes from other sources as well. She was a trainee flight attendant on board doomed AirAsia flight QZ8501.

She left a touching love letter from the sky for her boyfriend in one of her last Instagram posts.

“I love you from 38,000 ft,” 22-year-old Khairunisa wrote on a napkin to her partner Divo just two weeks ago.

Along with photos of her travels, family and friends, Khairunisa often shared messages to her boyfriend including his and her name written in sand on Instagram.

Khairunisa’s brother, M. Ikhsan Nul Kamil, told Indonesian news portal Detik.com: “If they are saying they have found the body of one of the air stewardess, then we hope it is our little sister.”

He described her as a cheerful person and said: “She was a good girl, always liked to help others. I always asked for her help when I needed it. But she was also ‘manja’ (spoiled) because she phoned home four times a day.”

Khairunisa, known to her friends as Nisa, was identified because her name tag was reportedly still attached to her uniform.

Authorities have confirmed the bodies of four males and three females – including a flight attendant – have been discovered in the search.

Nisa was tentatively identified as one of the seven bodies so far retrieved from the Java Sea after the aircraft crashed on Sunday, 42 minutes after taking off from Surabaya in Indonesia with 162 people on board.

Her father, Haidar Fauzi, told the Sydney Morning Herald that he heard his daughter had been found but it has not been officially confirmed.

“We only borrowed our daughter from God and now he has taken her back,” Haidar told the SMH.

Her family has been waiting at Juanda Airport near Surabaya in East Java province, where a crisis centre has been providing information to anxious relatives since the plane vanished from radars after departing the airport for Singapore.

“This is what we expected, and the sooner the body is returned, the sooner we can have her back,” said Haidar.

Her father said she would have put the lives of her passengers before her own.

AirAsia jet took 'steep climb' before crash

 

Radar data being examined by investigators appeared to show that AirAsia flight QZ8501 made an "unbelievably" steep climb before it crashed, possibly pushing it beyond the Airbus A320's limits, said a source familiar with the probe's initial findings.

The data was transmitted before the aircraft disappeared from the screens of air traffic controllers in Jakarta on Sunday, added the source, who declined to be identified.

"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.

The source added that the data on which those assumptions had been made were incomplete. Colleagues and friends of the Indonesian captain on board have described him as an experienced and professional pilot.

The preliminary findings sharpen the focus on the role bad weather and the crew's reaction to storms and clouds in the area had to play in the plane's crash into the Java Sea which killed all 162 people on board.

Finding the six-year-old plane's cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR), more commonly known as black boxes, was vital to complement the radar data already available.

"With the CVR and FDR, we can establish what went on in the cockpit and what was going on with the aircraft. We can conclude if the radar information is accurate," added the source.

Climbing too slowly?

At 6.12am on Sunday, 36 minutes after taking off from Surabaya's Juanda Airport on a flight to Singapore, the pilot asked for permission to climb to 38,000ft from 32,000ft and deviate to the left to avoid bad weather.

Two minutes later, Jakarta responded by asking QZ8501 to go left seven miles and climb to 34,000ft. There was no response from the cockpit. The aircraft was still detected by the ATC's radar before disappearing at 6.18am.

An image that was reportedly leaked from AirNav Indonesia, which manages the country's air space, and shared on several websites, appeared to show QZ8501 at an altitude of 36,300ft and climbing at a speed of 353 knots.

The source declined to confirm if that image was accurate. Officials from AirNav Indonesia declined to comment.

Two veteran pilots told Reuters that, if accurate, the image and information released so far pointed to the fact that the aircraft may have climbed suddenly and then lost speed.

This can result in the aircraft stalling in mid-air before plunging to the sea, they said.

One pilot explained that an A320 would cruise at a speed of around Mach 0.78 while at an altitude of 32,000ft. That translates into roughly 516 knots.

"If you encounter turbulence, you go slower at what we call the turbulence penetration speed to get through it. If you climb to avoid turbulence, you slow down to have a better climb rate.

"That could be around Mach 0.76," he said. "But if you climb suddenly and start to lose speed, you will stall."

Severe weather

The source close to the probe said other aircraft in the area at the time of the crash were flying at higher altitudes.

Aircraft tracking website flightradar24.com said that they were at between 34,000 and 39,000 feet.

"We know that there was severe local weather and big clouds. But they (the other planes) were higher and did not appear to encounter any major problems. We want to look into that too," added the source.

Industry sources told Reuters that there could be parallels between this incident and the crash of Air France flight AF447 in 2009.

The investigation into that Airbus A330 showed that the co-pilot lost speed readings due to icing on the airframe.

His panic reaction meant that he kept trying to climb despite repeated stall warnings, and the crew failed to recognize the situation, eventually sending the aircraft plunging into the Atlantic.

Incidents like these show that the margin for error at higher altitudes is smaller than at takeoff or lower down, say industry experts.

They add that the A320's systems usually prevent pilots from doing anything outside usual safe flight parameters.

But these protections can be disabled in some circumstances, handing control to the pilots and leaving it to manual flying skills.

- Reuters

Waris penumpang terlalu sedih lihat jasad dijumpai

Flight QZ8501 relatives distraught as bodies found in sea

Relatives of passengers on AirAsia flight QZ8501 began crying hysterically and fainting today as Indonesian television footage showed a body floating in the sea during aerial searches for the plane.

At least two distraught family members were carried out on stretchers from the room where they had been waiting for news in Surabaya, Indonesia's second largest city – the take-off point for the aircraft that disappeared during a storm on Sunday.

"My heart will be totally crushed if it's true. I will lose a son," 60-year-old Dwijanto, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told AFP.

More than 48 hours after the Airbus A320-200 lost contact carrying 162 people to Singapore, aerial searchers spotted items in the Java Sea which officials said were from the plane. Soon after, they began recovering dozens of bodies.

As the first body was shown floating in the water on rolling television news, relatives burst into tears and hugged one another amid cries for more ambulances, said an AFP reporter at the scene.

One man covered his face and had to be held up by two other men before he fainted and was taken out by stretcher. Another woman was screaming and crying as she was supported by the mayor of Surabaya.

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."

Munif, a 50-year-old whose younger brother Siti Rahmah was on the plane, said he had been trying hard to keep the other families calm.

"But the atmosphere was very different after the footage of a dead body was shown. Families became hysterical," he said.

"Because everyone was wailing and yelling, I couldn't deal with it so I decided to leave the room."

In Malaysia, families of those on the MH370 flight that went missing without a trace in March hoped those lost in the latest tragedy could at least have a proper burial.

"The families can now have a closure and have a peace of mind which I am dying for," said Selamat Omar, whose 29-year-old son was on the Malaysia Airlines plane. – AFP, December 30, 2014.

AirAsia debris, bodies retrieved from sea

 

Indonesian rescuers searching for an AirAsia plane carrying 162 people pulled bodies and wreckage from the sea off the coast of Borneo today, 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 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 centre 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 metres 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.

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.

US 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.

- Reuters

Fernandes: Words cannot express how sorry I am

Group CEO of AirAsia Tony Fernandes says words cannot express how sorry he is for family members who lost loved ones on the plane that crashed.

FMT

JAKARTA: Family members broke down in uncontrollable sobs when news trickled in that debris and at least six bodies were being recovered from waters where the AirAsia plane carrying their loved ones had crashed.

Seconds later Group CEO of AirAsia 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.”

“I am rushing to Surabaya. Whatever we can do at Airasia we will be doing.”

The AirAsia plane travelling from Surabaya to Singapore lost contact with air traffic control Sunday morning with 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia, France and Britain on board.

A massive search and rescue effort was mounted with approximately 30 ships and 21 aircraft from Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea covering up to 10,000 square nautical miles. Indonesia was leading the effort.

Malaysia is deeply saddened by tragedy

This is indeed a trying time for those affected.

FMT

KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia chief executive Tony Fernandes Tuesday expressed his grief to the relatives of the 162 passengers and crew who were on board Flight QZ8501 after wreckage and bodies were spotted at sea.

“My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ8501. On behalf of AirAsia my condolences to all. Words cannot express how sorry I am,” he wrote on Twitter.

Fernandes said he was rushing to Surabaya in Indonesia, where the plane took off on Sunday bound for Singapore and where relatives have gathered.

“Our thoughts and prayers remain with the families and friends of our passengers and colleagues on board QZ8501,” his Malaysia-based airline said in a statement.

It said employees of affiliate AirAsia Indonesia, which operated the crashed plane, had been sent to the site in the Karimata Strait where debris was found and would fully cooperate in the investigation.

AirAsia Indonesia announced it would invite 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”.

Out of the 162 passengers and crew on board, 155 were Indonesian.

The accident was the third disaster this year involving a Malaysian-owned carrier.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared in March while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew.

In July another Malaysia Airlines flight — MH17 — was shot down over unrest-hit Ukraine, killing all 298 on board.

Malaysia’s Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said his country “stands in solidarity with the families and loved ones of those onboard (the AirAsia flight)and offers our deepest condolences”.

“This is indeed a trying time for those affected and Malaysia is deeply saddened by this tragedy,” Liow said in a statement, offering Indonesia all possible help.

- AFP

Bantuan kepada keluarga mangsa keutamaan AirAsia

Indonesian VP says object in sea not from flight QZ8501

An object spotted during a sea search for an AirAsia plane was not from the aircraft, Indonesian vice-president Jusuf Kalla said today after reports that an Australian surveillance aircraft had found something.

"It has been checked and no sufficient evidence was found to confirm what was reported," Kalla told a press conference at the Juanda International Airport in Surabaya from where the ill-fated plane departed.

Australia, Singapore and Malaysia have deployed military planes and ships to assist in the Indonesian search for flight QZ8501, which disappeared over the Java Sea yesterday en route to Singapore.

Kalla said there were 15 ships and 30 aircraft searching the area.

"It is not an easy operation in the sea, especially in bad weather like this," he said.

Indonesian Air Force spokesman Hadi Tjahjanto told AFP the search was now focused on a patch of oil spotted off Belitung island in the Java Sea. – AFP, December 29, 2014.

- See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/indonesian-vp-says-object-in-sea-not-from-flight-qz8501#sthash.IrQM7s9n.dpuf

Pilot’s daughter pines for papa

The young daughter of Captain Irianto, the pilot of the missing AirAsia plane posts a sad message begging her dad to come back to her.

FMT

PETALING JAYA: With search efforts of the missing Indonesia AirAsia flight QZ8501 already underway near Belitung Island, emotionally whipped family members and friends are struggling to come to terms with the loss of their loved ones on board that Sunday flight.

One such person was Angela, the daughter of Captain Irianto, the pilot on duty, who posted a piercingly sad appeal for her father to return home.

As reported by kompas.com, Angela posted the message on Path, a social networking site that read: “Papa pulang. Kakak masih butuh papa. Kembalikan papaku. Papa pulang pa, papa harus ketemu.” (Papa come back. I still need you. Return my papa to me. Papa come back, we have to meet.)”

Irianto, whose wife is a homemaker, has one other child besides Angela.

The pilot was well known for being experienced with 6,100 hours of flying time under his belt.

The actual cause of the plane losing contact with traffic control is as yet unknown as efforts are more focussed on searching for the wreckage.