Another Passenger Plane Goes Missing Over Pacific

http://abcnews.go.com/International/passenger-plane-missing-pacific/story?id=27856490

What the hell is going on over there? 162 on board.

An AirAsia Airbus 320-200 has gone missing on a flight from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore, according to the National Agency Search and Rescue Republic of Indonesia. The plane, flight QZ8501, which reportedly had 162 people on board, lost contact at 7:24 a.m. local time near Belitung Island, Indonesia, according to a statement from AirAsia. "At the present time we unfortunately have no further information regarding the status of the passengers and crew members on board, but we will keep all parties informed as more information becomes available," AirAsia said. The aircraft was an Airbus A320-200 with the registration number PK-AXC. Search and rescue operations were in progress, AirAsia said. The plane lost communication with Indonesia's Surabaya airport 42 minutes after takeoff, when it was believed to be over the Java Sea between Kalimantan and Java islands, Hadi Mustofa, an official of the transportation ministry told Indonesia's MetroTV. Mustofa said the plane had seven crew and 155 passengers. Developing story. More to come ...

Terrible.

Too soon, IMO.

Maybe soon, but in the back of my head, I saw CNN scrambling to get an Airbus simulator. Kick um when they're down.

JamesMcD wrote: Too soon, IMO.

never too soon for a good meme...

Cheap, poorly regulated airlines, with many running airframes bought after they reached the end of their lifespan at a 1st World airline that can be piloted and maintained by poorly trained personell.

I mean, how hard could it be?

In reply to novaderrik:

Thank you!
If you can't joke about death, you're clearly not prepared for it.
I for one almost die every two years or so.

In reply to SnowMongoose:

I'm just sorry I was beaten to it. I'll just leave this Airpkane quote here instead " Shanna, they bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into. I say, let 'em crash."

In reply to turboswede:

That sounds to be the likely thing going on here.....

turboswede wrote: Cheap, poorly regulated airlines, with many running airframes bought after they reached the end of their lifespan at a 1st World airline that can be piloted and maintained by poorly trained personell. I mean, how hard could it be?

Only in this case, it was an A320-200.... far from end of life.

Simulators aren't going to be accurate representations of some systems like pitot & static heaters or emulate other failure conditions. Like a magnetometer being exposed to a bunch of HIRF energy in a complete aircraft. Etc etc. CNN is just trying to organize a circus act.

isn't the Airbus 320 the one with -zero- feedback on the controls?

ProDarwin wrote:

turboswede wrote: Cheap, poorly regulated airlines, with many running airframes bought after they reached the end of their lifespan at a 1st World airline that can be piloted and maintained by poorly trained personell. I mean, how hard could it be?

Only in this case, it was an A320-200.... far from end of life.

So the pilots and ground staff may have been poorly trained.

Many times the electronic wizardry either gets confused by a simple failure and the pilots follow its instructions right into the ground or they don't trust it and ignore its warnings and fly it right into the ground. Unfortunately, the issue with many downed fights is pilot error.