# Another Plane May Be Down (AirAsia QZ8501)



## oldman (Dec 28, 2014)

Another plane is reported missing in Asia and I have a feeling this one or parts of it may be found. On a flight from Surabaya to Singapore, the Airbus A320 lost communications with the tower after it deviated from its submitted flight plan because of weather issues. Normally, one of three things bring an airliner down; weather, pilot error or mechanical issues. In this case, probably weather will be the culprit, "if" it is indeed down. There have also been accidents where a combination of things go wrong. Sometimes pilots will try to correct a mechanical problem only to actually make things worse. They use their skills and training, but occasionally, as we have learned from flying in the simulator, the plane does not behave as pilots predict it will or the way the plane is designed to, which in turn confuses pilots and they make changes according to the instruments and the instruments are wrong.

I had one bad (really scary) incident in my 32 years of flying. We were flying from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco in a Boeing 767-200. We pushed back and while taxing out to our runway for takeoff, we were finishing our checklist, including running the engines up to to full throttle and hold them for 5 seconds. Now, we are number two for t/o. We waited the three minutes to make sure we would not encounter any wake turbulence from the previous plane that took off in front of us and then the ATC (Air Traffic Controller) gave us permission to t/o. We begin our takeoff roll down the runway to reach our t/o speed of 190. The FO (First Officer) is calling out our speed, "150, 160, 170, 180, 190, V1, rotate" and I pull back on the yoke and we are beginning our climb when at 2000 feet, I hear the ATC tell me to climb to one-three thousand and level off. Maintain speed at 2-5-0. Just as a I get above 2500, in the cockpit, we hear a loud bang. We looked at the instruments and see that we have lost power in the right engine and we smell smoke coming in through the a/c ducts. We extinguish the engine and shut it down along with the fuel supply. That engine now cannot be restarted. I have 225 passengers on-board of 375,000 pounds of aircraft. We immediately declared an emergency and tell the ATC that we need to return. 

Needless to say, all ended well, but it was the scariest moment of my aviation career. I learned one thing that day in particular. I was more worried for the passengers than I was for myself. I kept thinking to myself, "I have to get these people down safely." I told the psychiatrist that, (yes, pilots have to go see a shrink before the FAA lets them back in the cockpit after an accident or other stressful situation), and he said that being worried more for the passengers is a common mindset that most pilots experience when in times of distress. I found that to be very interesting.  

I wanted to share this story with everyone.


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## rkunsaw (Dec 28, 2014)

Scary story Oldman. When I was in the USAF stationed at Tinker AFB near OKC, we were heading for the Panama Canal Zone in a C124 loaded with a 6x6, a beacon, and power generators plus a crew of us airmen. We started to takeoff when suddenly they shutdown and taxied back to the apron. We stayed on the plane while a crew brought a ladder out and worked on one of the engines for half an hour. We started down the runway again and shut down again. The maintenance crew came out and worked on the same engine again. The third time we went down the runway we took off and flew to Panama. This was in 1961 and the best I can remember we were in the air 11 hours with everyone of us staring at that engine.


Back to the missing plane. I hope it turns out well but it doesn't look good.


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## oldman (Dec 28, 2014)

Larry----I am glad that you guys did well with getting your plane in order and having a safe flight. I realized within a short time of my career that passengers became worried when they would see mechanics working on the plane while at the gate. Of course, we all have experienced this at one time or another as a pilot or a passenger. I made it a point that if I had to have maintenance performed while sitting at the gate with passengers on-board that I communicated with them the reason why they were seeing the mechanics. I had things like a front wheel changed, a gauge swap and one of my landing lights replaced. The worse was when I had to have a fuel filter replaced. Passengers always seemed to be more concerned when they saw the engines being worked on. I always thought it helped if the pilots would communicate with the passengers the reason as to what was going on. It sort of calms everyone.


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 28, 2014)

Glad all ended well with your flight Oldman, here's more on the AirAsia flight that's now missing...http://rt.com/news/218155-missing-airasia-flight-updates/


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## WhatInThe (Dec 28, 2014)

Sound like a true officer oldman more worried about your passengers because that's the responsibility of any officer or leader. Lead them to anywhere but death. You took care of your charge mentally and physically and you can't ask for any more.

This missing flight is already dominating the Sunday morning news. Wait until the regular news day tomorrow. Two flights now gone missing in the same part of the world in a year. Not good. I hope we get survivors out of this one.


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## oldman (Dec 28, 2014)

Asia, Mid-east and Russia seem to have their problems with flying. I say "seem to" because they have been in the news more so than the rest of the world. Aviation has come a long way, especially with safety. Good pilots do not take any chances what so ever. When I was a First Officer, I flew with a pilot that had several years of experience. He taught me much about safety. On one particular flight, our destination was Columbus. They were expecting heavy t'storms upon our arrival. As we got closer, we saw a lot of red and yellow on our radar in the cockpit. The ground wind speed was also picking up. My Captain said that he wasn't risking taking it down. (It's his call.) Instead, he diverted to Cincinnati. The passengers were upset, but we landed in sunshine and calm winds. Sometimes, the passengers have no idea why pilots do what they do. We explained it to them that day, but they wanted us to land in Columbus. People need to understand that lightening and high winds have caused many airplanes to come down before they are supposed to.


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 28, 2014)

If I was one of the passengers, I'd rather be slightly annoyed and alive, than play Russian roulette with my life by flying into seriously heavy weather.  When flights are diverted due to a drunk loud-mouth passenger, now that would make me mad.


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## oldman (Dec 29, 2014)

Still no word on the lost plane. This sort of thing really puzzles me. The plane should be equipped with an underwater beacon attached to the flight data and voice recorders (a.k.a. black boxes) that should send out a ping that can be picked up by specially made receivers. These beacons are able to withstand some pretty horrific crashes and can last for up to 30 days in water, perhaps as much as 20,000 feet deep, depending on how new the transponder is. The new transponders can send out a beacon or a "ping" in up to 20,000 feet of water, 1 ping per second. The issue I think they are having is that the receiver must be somewhere within 1-2 miles (maybe more, depending on the environment) of the transponder. However, considering that the aircraft is continually sending out a beacon, even while in flight, the search team should have a pretty good idea where the plane is if they play back their tape of the timeline they recorded and then they should be able to have the location where they lost radio contact. Then, they take that location and start with a 5 mile radius, increasing it by 5 miles as they go, until they capture the "ping." And the fact that the plane diverted or wanted to divert from its planned flight plan, may also be having an issue with locating the missing jet. Keep in mind that there is always a chance for survivors in a water landing, unless the plane went nose down and crashed, then probably not. But, as we seen with the landing on the Hudson, it is possible to have survivors, if the pilot was able to make a landing, instead of a crash. Obviously, I am expecting the worse, but hoping for the best.  

They still have not located Malaysian Flight MH-370 and I would have thought that with this lost flight for such a long period of time that new technology would have been developed in a hurry to locate lost planes in water. I know that many still suspect that the pilots disconnected the beacons and the plane is sitting on some foreign soil somewhere, but why? What would be the reason for this? 

I can't imagine having my relatives at the bottom of an ocean for such a long period of time.


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## WhatInThe (Dec 29, 2014)

On que here come the conspiracy theories. Airline CEO sells almost one MILLION shares of stock days before plane disappeared.

http://www.infowars.com/airasia-ceo-dumped-shares-days-before-flight-disappeared/

Some are now theorizing that planes are being collected for an attack.


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## kcvet (Dec 29, 2014)

another Bermuda triangle there


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## GDAD (Dec 29, 2014)

I have flown over the region from Australia to Singapore a dozen or so times. It is an area that planes drop from air pockets
which have not been picked up. On one occasions a plane my wife & I were on propped 8000 feet one person got a broken leg
& was hospitalized in Singapore, a few others with bumps & bruises.


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## oldman (Dec 29, 2014)

GDAD said:


> I have flown over the region from Australia to Singapore a dozen or so times. It is an area that planes drop from air pockets
> which have not been picked up. On one occasions a plane my wife & I were on propped 8000 feet one person got a broken leg
> & was hospitalized in Singapore, a few others with bumps & bruises.



Unfortunately, it is mostly difficult to expect air pockets. Turbulence can normally be predicted using clouds, weather, radar and other pilot's and ATC's communicating to one another. This plane puzzles me. I realize that if the pilots were experiencing an issue that they may not have had time to discuss it with the ATC, but NO distress call? How long does it take to say, "Mayday, Mayday?" Now, at least, you have the ATC's attention and he or she should be able to spot your location. I don't have a thing against Asian pilots, but something tells me that they are trained much different than U.S. pilots.


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## Warrigal (Dec 30, 2014)

Latest news



> *AirAsia QZ8501 live: Body and debris spotted in search for missing aircraft, Indonesian officials say*
> 
> Tue 30 Dec 2014, 7:18pm
> *Related Story:*       Debris spotted in water is from missing AirAsia plane: official
> ...



Breaking news 

            Indonesian navy says 40 bodies have been recovered during search for AirAsia flight QZ8501Indonesian navy says 40 bodies have been recovered during search for AirAsia flight QZ8501


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## oldman (Dec 30, 2014)

I hope that they can recover all of the souls that were on-board and also some of the plane, at least enough to make a determination as to what brought the plane down. My thoughts and prayers are with the victim's families.


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## QuickSilver (Dec 30, 2014)

_ I had a feeling that they would find this one and rather quickly. _


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## SeaBreeze (Dec 30, 2014)

Such a tragedy, sad for the victims and their families.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/30/airasia-flight-qz8501-found_n_6387938.html


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## QuickSilver (Dec 30, 2014)

I heard on the news this morning that the Malaysian authorities broke the news to the families by showing them a video of floating wreckage and dead bodies.  How nice of them. Idiots..


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## 911 (Dec 30, 2014)

I can hardly imagine what it must have been like to wake up and see the news on TV and the reporter is talking about finding the wreckage and retrieving the bodies, if a member of my family was onboard. What were they thinking?


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## Kitties (Dec 30, 2014)

I couldn't believe it when someone said something at work. I feel so bad for those souls.


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## Don M. (Dec 30, 2014)

At least this airliner went down in shallow water, and the authorities will be able to recover many, perhaps all, of the bodies, which should give the families some degree of closure.  The families of the passengers on the Malaysian airliner that went down last March may never really have that peace.  The Black box should be recoverable in this disaster, which will also help in understanding what happened.


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