Sudden descents rare but deadly: Clues to Jakarta jet crash
By Sunday, searchers had located the airplane’s flight data recorders and hoped to recover them soon. But it could take months before investigators determine the cause of the crash. Efforts continued Monday to extract bodies and recover the data recorders from the wreckage. The Sriwijaya plane, a Boeing 737-500, was deemed safe to fly before takeoff and the airline had never suffered a crash that resulted in fatalities on board. More than 50 ships and thousands of people are involved in the search and recovery. The Sriwijaya flight, with a 26-year-old Boeing Co. 737-500 jet, took off from Jakarta with 62 people on Jan. 9 and at first flew what appeared to be a routine trajectory, according to a flight track produced by Flightradar24. After reaching about 10,000 feet (3,050 meters), it leveled off, staying between 10,000 and 11,000 feet for about 45 seconds, according to the data. At around that time, an air-traffic controller radioed the plane to say it was off course, said Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi. There was no response. At roughly the same time, the plane turned left by about 40 degrees in the opposite direction from which it had been directed. At that point, the jetliner began an abrupt descent. It dropped by close to 10,000 feet in roughly 14 seconds, which would mean it was descending at about 40,000 feet per minute. That far exceeds any kind of normal flight activity, even an emergency maneuver to get to lower altitudes. Aviation safety analysts cautioned that it’s far too early to say what caused the crash. Numerous factors including some type of malfunction, pilot actions or even a suicide remain possible, they said. While rescue workers say they think they’ve located the jet’s two crash-proof flight recorders, the so-called black boxes have yet to be retrieved from beneath the Java Sea. “I would not take anything off the table yet,” said John Cox, president of Safety Operating Systems and a former airline pilot. “We just don’t have the data.”<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2021-01-12/unaligned/sudden-descents-rare-but-deadly-clues-to-jakarta-jet-crash
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Sudden descents rare but deadly: Clues to Jakarta jet crash
By Sunday, searchers had located the airplane’s flight data recorders and hoped to recover them soon. But it could take months before investigators determine the cause of the crash. Efforts continued Monday to extract bodies and recover the data recorders from the wreckage. The Sriwijaya plane, a Boeing 737-500, was deemed safe to fly before takeoff and the airline had never suffered a crash that resulted in fatalities on board. More than 50 ships and thousands of people are involved in the search and recovery. The Sriwijaya flight, with a 26-year-old Boeing Co. 737-500 jet, took off from Jakarta with 62 people on Jan. 9 and at first flew what appeared to be a routine trajectory, according to a flight track produced by Flightradar24. After reaching about 10,000 feet (3,050 meters), it leveled off, staying between 10,000 and 11,000 feet for about 45 seconds, according to the data. At around that time, an air-traffic controller radioed the plane to say it was off course, said Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi. There was no response. At roughly the same time, the plane turned left by about 40 degrees in the opposite direction from which it had been directed. At that point, the jetliner began an abrupt descent. It dropped by close to 10,000 feet in roughly 14 seconds, which would mean it was descending at about 40,000 feet per minute. That far exceeds any kind of normal flight activity, even an emergency maneuver to get to lower altitudes. Aviation safety analysts cautioned that it’s far too early to say what caused the crash. Numerous factors including some type of malfunction, pilot actions or even a suicide remain possible, they said. While rescue workers say they think they’ve located the jet’s two crash-proof flight recorders, the so-called black boxes have yet to be retrieved from beneath the Java Sea. “I would not take anything off the table yet,” said John Cox, president of Safety Operating Systems and a former airline pilot. “We just don’t have the data.”<br/>
