Lion Air crash: Boeing 737 plane crashes in sea off Jakarta
bbc.com
bbc.com
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1151x734/3...
(Credit to a comment on Reddit here https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/9s9752/indonesian...)
In this case, the very high speed at low altitudes could indicate that they had the expected amount of thrust but couldn't climb, maybe due to issues with controls.
Source: https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/flightradar24-data-regard...
That's not a particularly unrealistic speed for a plane that's flying straight into the water, especially if the engines were still producing thrust. The 400-ft altitude would have been recorded less than 1 second before impact.
Yeah, a quick (and very elementary) back-of-the-envelope energy calculation shows that gravity alone couldn't achieve that speed. [SEE EDIT]
> Were the pilots desperately trying to go up, not knowing which way was up?
We'll have to wait and see, but it was morning, and I think I heard that there was weather in the vicinity of the crash but not at its actual location.
EDIT: That calculation was wrong. The aircraft had more energy at 5475 ft than it did at 3200, 7.73 seconds before the last data point.
As difficult as it is to believe for anyone who received their training in almost any other program, the crew of AF447 had never practiced a single stall recovery in an aircraft before that flight.
In addition, the transcript shows that they were not mentally frozen in a panic and unwilling to act, but that they were poorly-trained to correctly identify the problem, something compounded by terrible CRM as they argued about it such that even those who had correctly diagnosed the problem were overruled after the time to test their hypothesis had been wasted in argument.
Instrumentation issues also compounded the above, among other things.
Lastly, the pilot who attempted to apply correct control inputs to recover had his inputs negated by a dual-control input system so mind-boggling that it could only have been conceived by a company with such a culture of arrogance-driven ignorance as Airbus.
Would you like to help me out with that?
If all potential energy from an altitude of 5000 ft = 1500 m got converted into velocity, we'd talk about 170 m/s or about 330 knots (and a free fall from that altitude would take about 17 seconds, t = sqrt(2h/g)).
The most likely scenario in my head is some sort of control surface malfunction. Given how quickly the debris was located I'm pretty confident that they'll get the black box and solve this mystery.
This is obviously speculative, but I’ll be curious to find out what happened.
It's certainly not impossible that there was an obvious fault before V1, but it's _way_ down the list of likely scenarios.
I have heard of issues that were discoverable before V1. Famously there was the Russian hockey team that was killed because the pilot was riding the brake and didn’t abort in time.
And in this case, it's being used somewhat distasteful.
https://ekonomi.kompas.com/read/2015/02/21/152425026/Rusdi.K...
(sorry I can't find equivalent story in English)
Is this closer to what’s intended?
The whole thing was a shitshow and I can't recommend strongly enough choosing any other airline if you've got the choice.
""" Hmmm.
ADC/Pitot or load....
P/S, Pitot main issue (alt is more stable than speed > static is OK). Maybe.
OK, the DFDR will be telling, probably as much as the CVR. This plane was in distress from 300' AMSL, and has every indication of a longitudinal stability issue, e.g., stick force gradient deal. Immediately, forget about directional issues, this isnt an engine, TR, asymmetric slat, flap or other issue, look closely at the loadsheet, and the load control. The ADSB data is indicating an aircraft with negligible static stability, and that points towards a loading error, with a CG near neutral point. Should you ever have that happen, it is not fun; helicopter pilots get laughed at as that is what they are used to every day, which is why they are generally odd people. If you have an AP, the plane will do better on AP often than a driver at the wheel. If you have flaps, get the TE flaps out, or all flaps the Cp is shifted aft. Don't go to altitude, don't burn CWT gas, move pax fwd if needs be, but mainly, be very careful with your flight control inputs, planes that are unstable are fun to fly for very short times. Do not go fast, unless you have an ejector seat. As an AAI I normally would suggest awaiting data release before sprouting comment pointedly, but this is already shown in the data. Forget suicide etc, this plane had pitch instability from the get go.
I have investigated a number of aircraft loading events, and have also been on the receiving end of 2 of my very own. Have sympathy for the poor flight crew, unless they were form a flight test background it is unreasonable to critique their performance. Could an airline train crews to deal with load errors? I can say that is possible, in fact it is not even hard, and last count, I had investigated over a dozen events... need to dust off the confuser for an exact number, but I can recall 12 offhand. Will airlines train crew to handle such cases? highly unlikely, the industry is not after competency above that mandated by the regulator.
Load error, possible Pitot.
sad day. """
Does anybody know what "load" means in this context?
Some more detail from the Wikipedia entry[0]:
"On 2 June 2013, investigators from the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation of Afghanistan confirmed the load shift hypothesis as the starting point: three armoured vehicles and two mine-sweeping vehicles, totalling 80 tons of weight, had not been properly secured. At least one armoured vehicle had come loose and rolled backwards against the airplane's rear bulkhead, damaging the bulkhead. This also crippled key hydraulic systems and damaged the horizontal stabilizer components - most notably the jackscrew, which rendered the airplane uncontrollable.[10] Control of the aircraft was therefore lost, with the abnormal pitch-up rotation, stall, and crash to the ground ensuing.[1] The damage made it impossible for the crew to regain control of the aircraft."
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Airlines_Flight_102
I'm not familiar with airline operations because I've never flown anything bigger than a Cessna 172, but from what I gather the airlines assume an average per-passenger weight, and account for number of bags and the ground crew will distribute in the holds accordingly. Ever seen flight crew moving passengers on little regional jets? It's to make the weight distribution safer. The smaller the plane, the bigger the effect of a few passengers.
https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1056758281929154565
(FlightRadar24: "A word of caution: ADS-B data can be incredibly useful, but to speculate on a cause at this point would be conjecture. The Flight data recorder and Cockpit voice recorder will play an important role in the investigation, as always. #JT610")
(The other possibility I can think of is icing, but since Indonesia is a tropical country, and the flight never got above 5000 feet or so, I'm guessing it wasn't.)
(Note: a friend of mine personally knew several students on board via AIESEC, a student organisation. RIP.)
Note also, though, that this only works if shocking pictures are used very sparingly, and only really to make an important point.
The public needs to see graphic imagery of humans causing other humans to suffer. We need to know the harm we inflict and we need to turn the raw emotion of pain and disgust into action.
I don't think it's appropriate to show blood and gore when there's nothing at stake, but these are not such instances.
If your husband/wife/son/daughter/parents were killed in that crash, would you want your young child walking past a news stand in the street to see their mangled bodies in a field displayed for all and sundry to gawk over? Would you want the rest of the world to see and remember your kin like that?
Somewhere in the mix, there has to be an element of basic human dignity and respect towards deceased people, and their loved ones who have to come to terms with that fact.
A good exploration of why they were so prominent and how they've become less so in modern times can be found here: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/11/the-rise-and-fal...
Same-day and day-after coverage is typically when most people are most focused on any given tragedy, and images are often what stays in people's memories. A photo of disaster workers picking up pieces of metal doesn't convey much of the human tragedy at all.
In the wake of the Air France crash, the [Australian] Civil Aviation Safety Authority required that pilots receive upset recovery training, although it was long a standard practice at Australian airlines. The AirAsia Indonesia crash report said Indonesia's Director General of Civil Aviation has no such requirement and neither of the pilots were trained in upset recovery on an A320.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/why-the-airasia-cr...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia_AirAsia_Flight_8501
Last I checked, AA uses Lufthansa Technik for its maintenance, so there's good third-party oversight. You can't say the same for Lion Air, which seems to write off its planes on an alarmingly regular basis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air#Incidents_and_acciden...
Edit: oh, ok, did some research. There’s no Australian Air Asia, no idea where I picked that up. Leaving it here in case anyone had the same misunderstanding.
At present there is no info to indicate that the aircraft type (737 MAX) is material to the cause of the incident.
International air investigation is usually get things right. Every now and then politics will interfere, but the process doesn’t change that much based on carrier and plane..
From the article: "Established in 1999, it has had issues of safety and poor management in the past and was banned from flying into European airspace until 2016."
What does this tell us if it were true?
Simple: Turbine failure cause by shattered blades!
1. Any blades fracture would disintegrated the whole engine into pieces at about 20K RPM. 2.Some of the catastrohic debris might hit the body plane itself and cause punctured. 3. The black smoke would confirm such hypothesis, a hydraulic failure would never cause any smoke. 4. Pilot tried to balance the doom plane by pointing the plane upwards but the thrust was not available. 5. Electrical short circuited cause by the catastrophic turbin blade failure would make the whole electrical,electronic and hydraulic dead as well. 6. It is very likely that only one turbine is remaining but the whole system was lost to control the descent. 7. At such low altitude which less than 5000 feet, the estimated 70 ton plane would not have the time to do any meaningful repair. 8. Pilot and crew would prioritize saving the plane and passenger instead of radioing a may day.
https://www.icao.int/about-icao/FAQ/Pages/icao-frequently-as...
Your (and Jeselnik's) criticism of the "thoughts and prayers" cliché is apt, though note one big difference: some of those senators and members of the house that offer "thoughts and prayers" after yet another fatal shooting take NRA money and/or actively block anti-gun legislation, while Boeing and Airbus are genuinely doing all they can to avoid plane crashes, I'd think.
So the aircraft manufacturers are much less cynical and hypocritical in offering up that cliché than politicians (faint praise, indeed).
EDIT: NRA, not NPR, lol
[1] https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=d000000082...
[2] https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/totals.php?id=d000000082&cy...
[3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-bloomberg/bl...
[4] https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/06/bloomberg-to-spend-...
> The Boeing Company is deeply saddened by the loss of Lion Air Flight JT 610. We extend our heartfelt sympathies to the families and loved ones of those on board.
> Boeing is providing technical assistance at the request and under the direction of government authorities investigating the accident. In accordance with international protocol, all inquiries about this accident investigation must be directed to the investigating authority in charge, the National Transportation Safety Committee of Indonesia.
As a pilot who has been forced to land a plane off-airport, you would be amazed at how the brain, trying to save itself, can pull any tiny potentially helpful bit of information from memory and present it for your consideration and use. I collect aviation accident factoids like a magpie collects shiny folderol. :)
I see a lot of comments on Twitter today along the lines of "What is happening in aviation these days??", and the answer is really "Nothing really". Commercial flying is safer than it ever has, and it is telling that an accident such as this is garnering so much attention because they don't really happen all that often, so air crashes seem worse because they are not always in the news as they were decades ago.
You have to consider the fact that these days, at any particular second of any day, there are more than a million people who are airborne at the same time. That is a city load of people who are not in contact with the ground at any given time. Given that - the low number of fatalities is remarkable indeed.
In addition to learning about potential traps and how to react, each accident comes with a grave reminder not to become complacent. There is lots of discussion about a mechanical write up in the leaked aircraft logbook page on this accident. Some are questioning if the crew read that logpage and was aware of the earlier mechanical discrepancy. Any professional pilot will tell you that sometimes all you do is open the book and just make sure the mechanic’s signature is there signifying the aircraft is airworthy. This incident may reveal just how valuable it can be to go back a few pages and see what has been written up recently. Things that we normally do when we’re at the top of our game and have lots of extra time but will let slide when we get complacent.
I used to skydive in the US, and a subscription to the US skydiving magazine was required for an active license. In that magazine was a breakdown of every single fatal skydiving accident in the US, and an analysis of what went wrong. Those were sometimes pretty freaky to imagine, in the same way a plane crash is freaky to imagine, but at the same time, reading the reports made me feel overall safer. Seeing and understanding every single report and the specific situations that lead to them, and being aware that the community and equipment manufacturers were paying attention and taking action to make the sport safer whenever possible, knowing those things was informative and comforting.
https://local.theonion.com/autistic-reporter-train-thankfull...
Don't be daft, read the information presented rather than just making things up.
There's nothing about a very wobbly assent that suggests a sudden failure, from take off they're struggling and changing air speed dramatically. There's numerous graphs posted in this thread comparing the take offs with the previous days which shows the stark difference. Clearly, radio contact was lost "suddenly" because it was doing 550 KM/h straight into the water. The last transponder ping would have been a couple of seconds before impact with the ground.
Fun fact: Flight Levels are really only used at 18000 feet and above. That's where local barometric pressure is ignored and aircraft use the standard value. I believe it's a global standard to use local barometric pressure below 18000.
I don't know if there are any fun facts in this particular conversation. May the crash victims rest in peace, and may their families, friends, and colleagues somehow find peace after this tragedy.
In any case, what you're referring to is the Transition Altitude, where pilots switch from local altimeter settings to a standard setting of 29.92. In the US and Canada, this is 18,000 feet, but it varies in other countries. In Australia, for example, the transition altitude is 10,000 feet. The transition altitude in any country is supposed to be above the highest elevation of any point in the country.
That's the theory anyway: the highest elevation in Australia is 7,310 feet, but the highest elevation in North America is Denali (Mount McKinley) at 20,310 feet - which puts it up in the flight levels.
Leaving that aside, the idea is that when you're flying at lower altitudes, you not only want to know your altitude relative to other aircraft to avoid collisions, you also want to know if you will clear any obstacles on the ground. So you set your altimeter to reflect current local air pressure to get an accurate altitude above mean sea level, which also lets you determine your altitude above ground level.
But once you're well clear of any terrain, this isn't helpful. It simplifies things to have all aircraft use a common altimeter setting, even if it doesn't truly reflect local conditions. In the Flight Levels, you are no longer worried about the ground, you're only worried about other aircraft. (And Denali!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_level#Transition_altitu...
Here is why it doesn't happen: whether you are climbing, descending, or flying level, you always have a specific target altitude or flight level. This target determines the setting you use, and you know which kind it is.
For example, you may be flying level at an altitude of 8000 feet and Air Traffic Control instructs you to "climb and maintain flight level 240" (roughly 24,000 feet).
You start a gentle climb and then change your altimeter to 29.92 because you're going up to the flight levels. You don't need to fiddle with the altimeter when you cross the transition altitude, because the target altitude/flight level is the only one that counts.
"What to Submit On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic"
I'd agree that if it was an article about a Cessna 172 crashing, it wouldn't belong on Hacker News, but in this case, the interesting fact about this aircraft accident is that it's a brand new airliner model, one that has never been in an accident before. Furthermore, we have some basic flight data, so perhaps a bored hacker might decide to debug what they think happened using this data.