Air Asia Flight Bound for Singapore Lost Contact with Air Traffic: Report

The Straight Times ^ | (Sunday) December 28, 2014

[kristinn]

An Air Asia plane travelling from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore has lost contact with air traffic control, Indonesia's Metro TV reported on Sunday. - See more at:

SNIP

...He said the plane had asked for an unusual route before it lost contact, Reuters reported.

There are reportedly 162 people on board.

[CedarDave]

Airbus is complete fly by wire, so a fried craft would have nothing to do but crash. No way to physically wrestle it down.

I flew out of Lubbock to DFW last April on an American Eagle plane. Climbing up, maybe around 20,000 feet, we were hit by lightning. It was obvious with the flash and instantaneous sound but no loss of power. It was a couple of minutes before the captain came on and said everything was o.k. and we would continue to DFW. I presume he spent the previous few minutes checking systems before making the announcement. I was very happy when were landed at DFW but I had to change planes immediately for Mississippi.

I guess it depends on where on the plane that lightning strikes as to what happens. Hopefully there are areas of the fuselage or wings that are designed specifically to a receive lightning strike, similar to those on buildings.

[advertising guy]

CNN is just babbling

The female airhead is stupid squared

[zipper]

I think he said ‘tops up to 53,000 ft’, and that would explain the turbulence they were dealing with, and of course they couldn’t go that high....so they must have tried to fly through the storm right?

No, apparently they requested a different routing to go around the weather.

They wouldn't have deliberately flown into it, if they were aware of it.

[maggief]

WeatherBug ‏@WeatherBug 22m22 minutes ago Our lightning data has some strikes near the path of @AirAsia flight #QZ8501 between 23:09 and 23:20 UTC. pic.twitter.com/VTY5OLPObF

[radu]

Glad the lightning didn’t damage the plane you were on. It must have freaked everyone out when it happened, especially the pilots.

I’ve seen videos of lightning striking planes and my hair stood up.

Like I said earlier, they do all they can to build planes to survive lightning strikes intact but nothing’s perfect. Everything has an Achilles Heel.

[Rome2000]

Looks LN1626 (Libyan Airlines) pulled a u-turn and headed back to Indonesia when they saw the weather at 23:10.

They were just ahead of 8501, who of course kept flying straight into that monster.

[PotatoHeadMick]

I think LN refers to Lion Air a budget Indonesian airline rather than Libyan airlines, which would be unlikely to be flying in that area.

[CedarDave]

Glad the lightning didn’t damage the plane you were on. It must have freaked everyone out when it happened, especially the pilots.

I'm more glad than you! On arrival I asked one of the pilots about it and he said it was a first for him, but it was not the first time for the other.

[Drago]

Satellite WX shot at the time/location of the incident (nasty): https://twitter.com/EarthUncutTV/status/549052183094652929/photo/1

[advertising guy]

So,not hard conformation yet ? The storm is the probable cause ?

[Figment]

‘The general odds are awfully good in an airplane.”

The general odds are good in an airplane unless you’re in a crash. I’ve never tried to count up the number of car crashes I’ve been in, at least a dozen. One rarely goes through more than one plane crash and lives to talk about it

[Rome2000]

You are right, that’s a Lion Air bound for Tarakan.

They maneuvered to avoid the weather and then continued on course.

[radu]

I’m sure you are! LOL!

At least one pilot had experienced it before and knew what to check right away. And now the other pilot will know if it ever happens again.

[Rockpile]

This is one of the most heavily used maritime routes in the world so floating debris and bodies should be spotted. Fishermen will be out when the weather clears and the pirates are probably already out looking for floating wallets, money, passports, credit cards and anything else they can steal.

[aviator]

I’ve had several lightning strikes. The bolt may weld small holes in the skin of the airplane. Some arcing of electricity may occur inside. Usually no real damage. It can make a loud noise heard inside the airplane when it hits.

[PotatoHeadMick]

Pirates off the east coast of Sumatra? A few hundred miles south of Singapore in one of the narrowest and busiest shipping lanes in the world, patrolled by the navies of at least four countries?

Are you sure?

I’ve never heard of pirates operating to any large degree in that area.

[HiTech RedNeck]

And/or takeoff issues. Can the plane leave the airport that it needs to leave.

[HiTech RedNeck]

The standard advice for being caught in a lightning storm in an automobile is to stay in the automobile. If lightning strikes, normally the metal skin and body will carry the current harmlessly past anything in the car. But there is a cliche that lightning goes where it wants, and it has been known to punch through an otherwise insulating surface.

[CedarDave]

I suspect both pilots had simulator training so they knew how to respond in that event. Though the plane appeared to be fine, I would expect it to be pulled from service for inspection after DFW arrival.

[PotatoHeadMick]

I see there are a few pirates in the Malacca Strait but they are small-scale operators picking off a few small coastal traders, not on the scale of Somalia. I wouldn’t think they would risk going south to Belitung in the middle of a massive air-sea rescue operation crawling with coastguard, police, navy and air force on the off chance of picking up some tourists’ wallets though