AirAsia Flight Missing - 155 on board

[Acey]

No evidence of pitot icing which was the root cause of AF447, so I wouldn't say that just yet. Again, the authors of that article don't understand that you can't trust radar data to determine much of anything with certainty, let alone the cause of a crash.

[nik-]

I wonder what's considered an "unbelievably" steep climb at that altitude.

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by Acey

No evidence of pitot icing which was the root cause of AF447, so I wouldn't say that just yet. Again, the authors of that article don't understand that you can't trust radar data to determine much of anything with certainty, let alone the cause of a crash.

Can you explain why that is acey?

[polak]

Couldn't the steep climb be an attempt to get out the storm they didn't want to fly into in the first place?

[Bigtime]

Most likely not, or if it was it was done out of panic. Storms in that area of world easily exceed the certified altitudes for pretty much every airliner.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by Dan02

Can you explain why that is acey?

The radar doesn't update fast enough for it to be 100% reliable... well ours doesn't, anyway. The altitude from the transponder is checked against the last altitude, and the computer then determines a climb rate which it shows to us... but this might not necessarily be the altitude the plane is climbing at, which is displayed to them in the cockpit on their vertical speed indicator.

If there was a pitot-static problem, like AF447, the altitude transmitted to ATC might not have been inaccurate.

Originally Posted by polak

Couldn't the steep climb be an attempt to get out the storm they didn't want to fly into in the first place?

Weather radar has hundreds of miles of range. It'd be unlikely that a storm would come up so quickly that you'd put yourself in a lethal climb to dodge it. Possible, of course... but unlikely.

[nik-]

So apparently 6000ft per minute was their climb rate?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30902237

that seems pretty nuts.

pitot tubes seem scarily important

[Stealth22]

Originally Posted by nik-

So apparently 6000ft per minute was their climb rate?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30902237

that seems pretty nuts.

pitot tubes seem scarily important

Too early to draw a conclusion...especially based solely off radar data.

6000ft/min seems really high...maybe a panic climb? This is where my knowledge drops off, as I'm not a real pilot. Are airliners even capable of climbing that fast? You'd get into a stall pretty darn quickly, methinks.

How would he climb that quick, just pull the stick back all the way and go full throttle? I could see it climbing for a little bit, but again, he'd stall pretty quickly. At that point, if he's full nose up, the thing would just drop out of the sky like a brick unless he nosed down.

Although all of that being said, I'd rather wait for the flight recorder data before jumping to any conclusions.

[Acey]

When they're up that high, there's not a big difference between the do not exceed speed and the stall speed, so you've got to be careful trying to command some massive rate of climb. Again, the Airbus will prevent most of this and not allow you to command a pitch/rate of climb that will create a stall condition... pulling back on the stick becomes a futile input as the airplane tries to keep you alive.

I can see a very lightly loaded A320 being capable of 6,000 fpm in the climb for some short period of time, but not at 30,000+ feet with any normal number of people on the airplane.

[Peanut]

Is it possible that the weather induced that extreme climb? Like some sort of intense up-draft?

I've read the AF447 transcripts too. I guess the pitot tubes were the root cause but there was some incredible human error too. The senior co-pilot's last words were "damn it!! we're going to crash. This can't be happening" and then 1.5 seconds later it was all over. They never figured out that the junior guy was pulling the nose up for basically the entire descent. Unbelievable, really.

[hwy19man]

Indonesian divers on Thursday found five bodies still belted into their seats.

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/divers-find-bodies-belted-in-seats-near-airasia-fuselage/ar-AA8sQBL?ocid=mailsignoutmd

[StrykerSteve]

I fly every day and this stuff scares the hell out of me. It's got to be one of the worst ways to go.

[polak]

Flying is scary cause you're at the mercy of the pilots and the plane. You just strap in and hope as you have zero control.

[FlamesAddiction]

I used to be very afraid of flying to point that I backed out of trips at the last second. If I knew I had to fly somewhere in 2 months, those 2 months before the flight would be filled with pretty bad anxiety. Eventually I had to fly more and more for work and the doctor ended up prescribing me something for it. Since then, I cope with it a lot better but I still don't like it.

I know all the statistics say that it is relatively safe, but in the rare event something does go wrong, what a terrorizing way it would be to go.

[Northendzone]

Originally Posted by Burninator

Here is a length Vanity Fair article about it.

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2...ight-447-crash

i found this to be a rather interesting article - well worth the read

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by polak

Flying is scary cause you're at the mercy of the pilots and the plane. You just strap in and hope as you have zero control.

The big reason I can't fly. The lack of control petrifies me.

[polak]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

The big reason I can't fly. The lack of control petrifies me.

Luckily I've been able to get past this by the sheer quantitiy of times I have flown. That being said the moment I hear something "off" on a flight, my heart immediatly races and I start thinking worse case scenario for a good chunk of time before I calm down again.

[terminator]

Fear of flying is a manifestation of mass hysteria.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

The big reason I can't fly. The lack of control petrifies me.

Do you have the same fear while driving? You might be the safest driver in the world, what about everyone else sharing the road with you?

What about while riding in a taxi? Does the lack of control in that situation also petrify you?

[jayswin]

Remember when Hack&Lube said he'd been on at least 3 flights were people died on the plane? That was weird.