An object spotted during a search for missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 cannot be verified as being from the aircraft, Indonesia's vice president says, after reports an Australian surveillance aircraft had found something.
Jusuf Kalla addressed the media at Surabaya airport, where the ill-fated plane departed, saying: "It has been checked and no sufficient evidence was found to confirm what was reported."
The reports - attributed to an Indonesian official - said Australian crews had spotted debris in the sea, but Defence said it had received no confirmation of that.
Mr Kalla said there were 15 ships and 30 aircraft involved in the search. The aerial search was suspended for a second day.
"It is not an easy operation in the sea, especially in bad weather like this," he said.
Indonesian air force spokesman Hadi Tjahjanto said the search was now focused on a patch of oil spotted off Belitung Island in the Java Sea.
"We are making sure whether it was avtur [aviation fuel] from the AirAsia plane or from a vessel because that location is a shipping line," he said.
Searchers had picked up an emergency locator signal off the south of Borneo but no subsequent signal was found, he said.
The missing Airbus A320-200 was carrying 162 people on a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore when it lost contact on Sunday.
On board the flight were 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, one Singaporean, one Malaysian and one Briton. The co-pilot was French.
Flight QZ8501 did not issue a distress signal and disappeared five minutes after requesting a change of course to avoid bad weather, which was refused because of heavy air traffic, officials said.
'We think it is on the sea floor'
Earlier, officials said the plane could be at the bottom of the sea after it was presumed to have crashed off the Indonesian coast.
"Based on our coordinates, we expect it is in the sea, so for now [we think] it is on the sea floor," Bambang Soelistyo, head of Indonesia's search and rescue agency, told reporters when asked about the missing plane's likely location.
A senior Indonesian civil aviation source told Reuters authorities had the flight's radar data and were waiting for search and rescue teams to find debris before they started their investigation into the cause.
Indonesian transport minister Ignasius Jonan said the search was focused on an area 70 nautical square miles between the island of Belitung, off Sumatra, and Borneo.
He said the sea was only 50 to 100 metres deep in that area, which would be helpful in finding the plane.
Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea have sent ships and aircraft to join the search in the Java Sea, and China offered to send planes and ships and any other help Indonesia needs.
Mr Soelistyo said Indonesia might not have the best technology to search underwater and had accepted offers of help from the United States, Britain and France.
Flight QZ8501 was travelling at 32,000 feet and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet to avoid clouds.
Permission was not given at the time due to traffic in the area. Five minutes later, at 6:17am (local time) on Sunday, the plane lost contact with air traffic control, transport officials said.
Data from Flightradar24.com, which tracks airline flights in real time, showed several nearby aircraft were at altitudes ranging from 34,000 to 36,000 feet at the time, levels that are not unusual for cruising aircraft.
Pilots and aviation experts said thunderstorms, and requests to gain altitude to avoid them, were not unusual in that area.
"The airplane's performance is directly related to the temperature outside and increasing altitude can lead to freezing of the static radar, giving pilots an erroneous radar reading," said a Qantas Airways pilot with 25 years' experience flying in the region.
The resulting danger is that pilots take incorrect action to control the aircraft, the pilot, who requested anonymity, said.
Was the plane climbing too slowly?
Online discussions among pilots centred on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the missing plane was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow in such weather conditions.
"At that altitude, that speed is exceedingly dangerous," Sydney-based aviation expert Geoff Thomas told Reuters.
"At that altitude, the thin air, the wings won't support the aircraft at that speed and you get an aerodynamic stall."
We've been here for two days but the information is unclear. That's all we need.
Franky Chandra, who had a sibling and friends on board
Safety authorities said accidents involving a loss of control, such as might occur in bad weather, are rare but almost always catastrophic.
The Indonesian pilot was experienced and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, the airline said.
The aircraft had accumulated about 23,000 flight hours in some 13,600 flights, according to Airbus.
Malaysia AirAsia chief Tony Fernandes flew to Surabaya and, along with Indonesian officials, updated relatives at the crisis centre at the airport.
"My heart bleeds for all the relatives of my crew and our passengers. Nothing is more important to us," he said on Twitter.
Anger growing among relatives at crisis centre
Mr Kalla spoke about the search being hampered by bad weather while visiting relatives of people on the flight at the crisis centre at Surabaya Airport.
Anger was growing among the group of about 100 relatives waiting for news at the centre.
"We only need clear information every hour on where they are going," said Franky Chandra, who has a sibling and three friends on the flight, referring to the search teams.
"We've been here for two days but the information is unclear. That's all we need."
Flight QZ8501's disappearance caps a disastrous year for Malaysia-affiliated airlines, with Indonesia AirAsia 49 per cent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went missing on March 8 on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew and has not been found.
On July 17, the same airline's flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.
The AirAsia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002.
AFP/Reuters
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.
from Top Stories - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&ct2=in&usg=AFQjCNE7EdO7PNak-C-8PAZekjvSWpg5xg&clid=c3a7d30bb8a4878e06b80cf16b898331&cid=52778697066764&ei=cqShVMCoMerB8AGzq4GIBg&url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-30/airasia-qz8501-no-evidence-to-confirm-objects-from-plane/5992256
via IFTTT
0 comments:
Post a Comment