REVEALED: AirAsia flight QZ8501 did not have a permit to be flying deadly route on the day it plunged into the sea as investigators announce they have found ‘two huge objects’ in search for lost jet
- The plane had been flying on an unauthorised schedule when it crashed
- The airliner has now been suspended from flying the route from the city of Surabaya to Singapore
- Search team came across 'two big objects' in the Java Sea off the island of Borneo late on Friday night
- The plane was reportedly flying on an unauthorised schedule when it crashed on Sunday
- This comes as 21 bodies were pulled from Java Sea - the largest number of search so far
- New discoveries bring total found to 30 as another 132 remain missing
- Five of those found today were still strapped into their seats, officials say
- Crews have found tail end of plane, but still no sign of black box recorder
AirAsia
didn’t have permission to fly from Surabaya to Singapore on the Sunday
morning that flight QZ8501 crashed into the Java Sea.
Indonesia's
transport ministry said the plane had been flying on an 'unauthorised
schedule' when it crashed, and the airliner has now been suspended from
flying the route from the city of Surabaya to Singapore.
Indonesian
authorities also said that recovery teams have found two big parts of
AirAsia Flight 8501, which crashed into the sea last weekend with 162
people on board.
The Wall Street Journal
reported that transport ministry spokesman J.A. Barata said the airline
was only permitted to fly the route on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and
Saturdays from late 2014 to early 2015.
Indonesian Navy personnel carry a bag
containing the dead body of a passenger of AirAsia Flight 8501 at sea
off the coast of Pangkalan Bun
Bodies of victims of AirAsia flight QZ8501 are kept inside body bags at the Indonesian navy vessel KRI Banda Aceh
Search teams hunting for the wreckage
of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 have had a breakthrough after discovering two
big parts of the aircraft
Search team came across 'two big objects' in the Java Sea off the island of Borneo late on Friday night
When the flight crashed on Sunday, it was reportedly flying on an unauthorised schedule
Rescue workers searching for victims
of AirAsia Flight 8501 pulled 21 bodies from the Java Sea yesterday, the
largest number so far, including five that were still strapped into
their seats
Today's finds bring the total number
of bodies recovered to 30. There were 162 passengers and crew on board
the Airbus A320-200 when it fell from the skies on Sunday
After being
recovered from the ocean the bodies are placed in numbered makeshift
caskets at a hospital in Pangkalan Bun, Borneo, before being flown back
to Indonesia
'So
AirAsia has committed a violation of the route that has been given to
them,' Mr. Barata said. He said the company’s flights from Surabaya to
Singapore had consequently been postponed.
Tommy
Soetomo, the head of state-owned airport operator PT Angkasa Pura I,
said AirAsia had been allocated a slot to fly on Sundays. But Mr. Barata
said that information was outdated and that AirAsia should have
returned the slot to the government.
Before
October, AirAsia had permission to fly daily to Singapore from
Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city, he said. He didn’t say why
the number of flights was cut.
The
two big parts of the plane were found in the Java Sea off the island of
Borneo late on Friday night, raising hopes that the remaining bodies
and the black boxes, crucial to determining the cause of the crash, will
soon be located.
A Russian search and rescue team carry their equipment after arriving in a Russian BE-200 amphibious aircraft in Pangkalan Bun
Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency personnel prepare diving equipment to search victims of AirAsia QZ8501
Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency personnel prepare robot diver to search for victims of AirAsia QZ8501
'With
the discovery of an oil spill and two big parts of the aircraft, I can
assure you these are the parts of the AirAsia plane we have been looking
for,' search and rescue agency chief Bambang Soelistyo told reporters.
He said the larger of the objects were around 10 metres by five metres (32 feet by 16 feet).
'As
I speak we are lowering an ROV (remotely operated underwater vehicle)
underwater to get an actual picture of the objects detected on the sea
floor. All are at the depth of 30 metres,' Mr Soelistyo said.
Earlier on Friday, recovery teams pulled 21 bodies from the Java Sea.
AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes (R) attending a funeral ceremony for Khairunisa, a flight attendant onboardthe fatal flight
Medical teams have collected
information from relatives on the victims, including their appearance,
birthmarks and any surgical scars, in an attempt to help identify the
bodies
Bodies in makeshift caskets are loaded
into a military transport plane in Borneo before being transported to a
police hospital in Surabaya, Indonesia, where families have gathered
The
total is the largest of the search so far, more than tripling the
number of bodies recovered from nine to 30, as dive teams say some were
found still strapped into their seats.
While
the black box has eluded search boats so far, this afternoon crews
announced they have found the tail of the plane sitting 100ft below the
ocean's surface using sonar devices.
It
is still not known what caused the Airbus A320-200 to plunge into the
ocean last Sunday and the plane's black box recorder, which will contain
vital information, has yet to be located.
A medical worker moves among the
corpses at a makeshift morgue inside the police hospital in Surabaya,
where the victims are taken for their relatives to identify
Around a third of
the bodies found today were located by an American ship, the USS
Sampson. Here American Navy personnel help unload corpses from a
helicopter
Dive teams have been left frustrated
after bad weather severely hampered search efforts, but today's
operation has tripled the number of corpses recovered
Radar ships have discovered large
'shadows' on the seabed which the military suspect is the wreckage of
Flight 8501 which they say will likely contain scores more bodies
Dive
teams have been left frustrated as dire weather has prevented them from
searching several large objects identified on the sea bed which may be
parts of the plane's fuselage.
Search
vessels, including a minesweeping craft and a private radar boat, have
also been unable to detect 'pings' - tiny electrical signals - which are
usually emitted by the box to signal its position.
In
emotional scenes, three more victims were identified and handed to
their families for burial at Surabaya hospital. They included Grayson
Herbert Linaksita, an 11-year-old boy, and Khairunisa Binti Haidar
Fauzi, an air hostess with AirAsia.
Of
the bodies pulled from the ocean, around a third were found by American
vessel USS Sampson, while five were strapped into their seats according
to Colonel Yayan Sofiyan, commander of warship Bung Tomo.
Three bodies have been identified
today, including that of Grayson Herbert Linaksita, an 11-year-old boy
who has been reunited with his relatives
The family of Grayson Linaksita break down in tears as the body of the 11-year-old boy is handed to them
The body of an air stewardess, Khairunisa Binti Haidar Fauzi, was also among the three identified today
There were more
emotional scenes at the police hospital in Surabaya, Indonesia, today as
bodies of those who died were identified and handed over for burial
Kevin Alexander Soetjipto was the
third passenger to be identified from dental records today, after the
first passenger Hayati Lutfiah Hamid was identified yesterday
International experts armed with sophisticated acoustic detection devices joined the team of searchers on Friday evening.
Given
Flight QZ8501 crashed in shallow seas, experts say finding the boxes
should not be difficult if its locator beacons, with a range of 2,000 to
3,000 metres and a battery life of about 30 days, are working.
The
data recorder contains crucial information like engine temperature and
vertical and horizontal speed. The voice recorder saves discussion
between pilots and other sounds from the cockpit.
Toos
Saniotoso, an Indonesian air safety investigator, said investigators
'are looking at every aspect' as they try to determine why the plane
crashed.
Relatives of Hendra Gunawan Syawal,
victim of the AirAsia Flight QZ8501 crash pray near his coffin at Adi
Yasa funeral home in Surabaya, Indonesia
Workers carry the coffin of Meiji Thejakusuma, into Adi Yasa funeral home
He
added: 'From the operational side, the human factor, the technical
side, the ATC (air traffic control) - everything is valuable to us.'
Drizzle
and light clouds covered the area this morning, and rain, strong winds
and high waves up to 13ft were forecast until Sunday. Strong sea
currents have also kept debris moving.
The
plane, carrying 162 passengers and crew, went down on Sunday around 40
minutes into a flight from Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city, to
Singapore.
Minutes
before disappearing from radar, the pilot told air traffic control he
was approaching a storm, but was denied permission to climb above it
because of heavy air traffic.
While
the actual cause is unknown, one expert has theorised that the pilot
managed to land the plane successfully on the ocean, before it was
overwhelmed by waves and sank.
Search teams say they have identified
the tail end of the plane sitting 95 feet below the sea's surface using
side scanning radar - which emits sonar pulses than analyses the echo
that bounces back
Crew members of Indonesian Air Force NAS 332 Super Puma helicopter look out of the windows during a search operation
Indonesian Air Force personnel carry
suspected debris after it was delivered by helicopter from a recovery
mission for missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 at the airport in Pangkalan
Bun yesterday
Indonesian Airforce personnel recovered more debris from the plane on January 2
Relatives of AirAsia passengers arrive at East Java Police headquarters to help identify the victims
Dudi
Sudibyo, senior editor of aviation magazine Angkasa, said that
emergency locator transmitters fitted to the plane were primed to go off
in the event of a strong impact, but never triggered.
He
says that if the captain, who was an experience pilot, managed to land
safely before the craft sank, this could explain why no signal was
transmitted.
However, other experts, examining radar data leaked from the investigation, disagreed.
Instead
they said the plane was batted from the skies by immensely powerful
winds that caused it to rise up at the same rate as a fighter jet,
before dropping almost vertically into the ocean.
Their
conclusion is that the Airbus 320-200 was in the grip of weather so
freakishly extreme that there was nothing the pilots could have done to
save the jet and all 162 people on board.
The
plane behaved in ways ‘bordering on the edge of logic,’ Indonesian
aviation analyst Gerry Soejatman said after examining figures leaked
from the official air crash investigation team.
But
on Friday Mr Soejatman said the jet climbed at a speed that would have
been impossible for the pilot to have achieved - and then plunged
straight down ‘like a piece of metal being thrown down.'
‘It’s really hard to comprehend…the way it goes down is bordering on the edge of logic.’
Australian
aviation expert, Peter Marosszeky, from the University of NSW, told the
Sydney Morning Herald that, in contrast, he was baffled by the
extremely low speed of the descent - as low as 61 knots - which would
suggest the plane was heading almost straight down, explaining why it
has been found in water just 10km from its last point of radar contact.
Lt. Col. Johnson Simanjuntak of
Indonesian Commander Air Field Iskandar Pangkalan Bun shows off parts of
a plane found floating on the water near the site where AirAsia Flight
8501 disappeared
Indonesian Air Force personnel carry suspected debris after it was delivered by helicopter from a recovery mission
Members of the Indonesian military carefully carried debris from the plane
Experts examining flight data leaked
from the AirAsia crash investigation said the plane behaved in ways
'bordering on the edge of logic' after rising thousands of feet into the
air before falling almost vertically
Both
experts are in agreement that the jet went down almost vertically - and
also concluded that a freak weather pattern that placed the aircraft
under extraordinary forces was to blame for its plight.
Earlier
in the week, AirAsia chief executive Tony Fernandes - who vowed today
to fly home with the body of 22-year-old stewardess Khairunnisada Haidar
once she has been formally identified - suggested the jet had
encountered ‘very unique weather.’
Mr
Soejatman meanwhile remains convinced that the reason for the crash is
possibly because the aircraft was caught in a severe updraft, followed
by an equally severe ground draft.
He
said that leaked figures showed the plane climbed at a virtually
unprecedented rate of 6000ft to 9000ft per minute and ‘you can’t do that
at altitude in an Airbus 320 with pilot action.’
Indonesian Navy frogmen and underwater
demolition unit personnel on a boat look as body bags containing dead
bodies of passengers
Indonesian navy officers and rescue team members transfer dead bodies of victims of AirAsia flight QZ8501 from a helicopter
The most that could normally be expected, he said, would be 1000ft to 1500ft on a sustained basis, gaining 3000ft in a burst.
But
then the aircraft fell at an even more incredible rate of 11,000ft a
minute, with extraordinary bursts of up to 24,000ft a minute - figures
higher than the Air France A330 Airbus that crashed into the Atlantic in
2009, killing 228 passengers after attaining baffling ascent and
descent rates.
Mr
Marosszeky agreed that a climb rate of at least 6000ft a minute would
indicate a ‘severe weather event,’ because that rate of climb was a
‘domain for jet fighters.’
Military personnel carry caskets containing the remains of passengers recovered off the coast of Borneo
In
a fascinating, yet worrying, comment earlier in the week, Mr Fernandes
suggested that climate change was making weather worse and flying
riskier, particularly in the tropics.
Meanwhile
today Mr Fernandes promised that he would fly with the family of flight
QZ8501 and the body of stewardess Ms Khairunnisa to her home town in
Palembang, Indonesia, once her body has been positively identified.
The body of one of the two stewardesses, still in her red AirAsia uniform, has been recovered.
In
a Tweet today, Mr Fernandes said that ‘if our beautiful and wonderful
crew (member) is identified, we will go from Surabaya to Palembang with
her parents. Heartbreaking soul (destroyed).’
Ms
Khairunnisa’s father, Mr Haidar Fauzie, told The Star newspaper of
Malaysia that he hoped the body found in a flight attendant’s uniform
was that of his daughter so that he could lay her to rest.
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