Another shocking air tragedy

LATEST international reports say that the missing AirAsia (Indonesia) flight QZ8501 is likely to be at the bottom of the sea. Indonesia’s search-and-rescue agency based its hypothesis on the co-ordinates of the plane when contact with it was lost. The Airbus A320-200 disappeared with 162 passengers on board on Sunday on a flight to Singapore and available information show that its pilots had requested a course change because of bad weather but did not send any distress call before the plane disappeared from the radar screens.
This is a tragic happening right before the New Year holiday and anguished relatives clarified to reporters that many on board were travelling to see their families for the year-end holiday season. Reports also showed that some are also calling 2014 a ‘year of tragedies’ for the aviation industry, linking it with the Malaysia Airlines losses of two planes — flights MH370 and MH17. Flight MH370 disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March with 239 passengers and crew (the wreckage, thought to be in the southern Indian Ocean, has still not been located) and MH17 was shot down over Ukraine in July, killing all 298 on board. Apart from the emotional coverage, commentators have been asking questions about aviation safety in the region. South-East Asia has a fast-developing aviation sector with many carriers fighting for air-space, observers say. Most welcome the competition, but safety norms have to be strengthened.
According to other international reports, the search area would be widened to cover West Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, and the southern parts of the waters off the coast of Belitung island and 30 ships and 15 aircrafts are so far taking part in the search, and that any ships in the area and ‘even fishermen’ were being asked to join in.
Clues about why the plane went down hopefully can be found in the aircraft’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders as flight data recorders contain data from more than 1,000 aircraft parameters, including altitude, vertical speed, airspeed, heading, control positions and parameters of the engines and most of the aircraft’s onboard systems, captured several times per second. The cockpit voice recorder also archives the last hours of not just cockpit voices and sounds, but also all radio and onboard inter-airplane communications.
A multinational team of expert investigators are probably looking far beyond just the flight information but so far the details available are far too limited to concoct any viable theories. Since the airplane had been in constant radar contact, hopefully radar data from air traffic control can provide tracking data that will indicate the flight path, altitude and direction the A320-200 followed.
For now all we can do is pray for the departed souls and hope that the wreckage can be found soon. However, the experts should, probably, take notes of weaknesses, vulnerabilities and blind spots in the international air system in order to make air travel more safe in the future.