The 'Painful' Truth behind AirAsia QZ8501 Crash: It was Avoidable

Liputan6.com, Jakarta - It is almost a year since AirAsia QZ8501 went missing. The aircraft which carried as many as 155 passengers on board was flying safely from Juanda International Airport at 05.36 am local time until it lost contact with the air traffic controller as soon as it reached the area of Belitung with the last detected coordinates and latitudes being at 108.50.07 03:22:46 EL.

Among the 155 passengers were 138 adults, 16 children and one infant. A number of passengers have been identified as Singaporean, British, Malaysian, South Korean and French nationals.

In spite of successful recovery of the aircraft, the tragedy, has for quite some time, populated Indonesia’s media headlines with the undertakings and progresses of search and rescue mission being informed and examined in a particularly detailed manner.

The struggles leading up to missing aircraft’s discovery…

Bad weather was one of the major interventions hindering AirAsia evacuation process. The mission to find all the missing pieces belonging to the flight that was bound for Singapore on 28 December 2014 postponed for several times due to unsupportive weather, with rising sea level making it even harmful for rescuers and investigation team to continue their mission.

Despite the initial pessimism placed upon searching mission, joint Search and Rescue Team under the coordination of Basarnas continued its effort to seek for survivors, or bodies, along with other objects belonging to AirAsia QZ8501. While it is true that bad weather makes it hard for the investigation to be done, the search and rescue team never showed any sign of giving up.

Identifying victims from the initially missing aircraft was another challenge that present during the search and rescue operation. When a major incident such as this happen, several things have to be firstly considered before conducting identification process: the condition of the terrain where the plane last detected, the exterior condition of victims bodies and their belongings which have been carefully collected by the search and rescue team amidst alarmingly volatile weather.

In trying to hasten the identification process,East Java Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) police team went to the extent of extending its effort to collect secondary antemortem data from families of AirAsia QZ8501 victims. Those were meant to help them identify victims easily as many of the bodies were discovered out in the open sea and it was learned that many of the victims bodily conditions were disturbing and difficult enough for the identification to be conducted.

Apart from dominating their agenda on finding the passengers of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 as well as fighting the ups and downs of the fairly unpredictable weather, struggles were also becoming real for the search and rescue team as they went to look for other potential leads associated with the missing aircraft out in the open sea. Efforts were extended to search for debris or any other object which led to the deployment of additional vessels and personnel to support the operation.

So, what really happened?

For months people have been questioning the reason as to why AirAsia QZ8501 ceased to exist. Within that period of time, people continue to strive each day believing that it was caused by unfriendly weather. Just recently, the National Committee for Transportation Safety (KNKT) released the latest conclusion about the plane that makes the initial reason of ‘unfriendly weather’ as largely irrelevant and the allegation over AirAsia company’s failure to comply with flight route permits only takes the case even further from the truth.

“Initially speculated reasons such as flight route permits and bad weather condition are not in any way associated or caused for the plane’s disappearance. There were no concrete leads or signs which suggest so,” KNKT investigating officer Nurcahyo posited.

As KNKT probes over the case, it is becoming more apparent that the aircraft was experiencing technical difficulty in the first 30 minutes following its departure. The Flight Data Recorder that has been collected and investigated upon suggested that there were four signs of warnings detected. Warnings continued to show up due to malfunction in its Rudder Travel Limiter (RTL) system which ultimately prompted the Electronic Centralized Aircraft Monitoring (ECAM) with the message ‘Auto FLT RUD TRV LIM SYS’ to become active.

“After being warned for several times, cabin crew immediately followed the instructions given as explained on the ECAM,” explained Nurcahyo.

Despite warnings reappearing for three times, it is learned that technical issue in the RTL system poses no harm to the safety of the aircraft. It was not until 06.15 local time, the aircraft again received another warning.

According to Nurcahyo, the last warning as has been detected by the FDR is a lot different from the previous ones. The last warning is believed to be an alarming technical problem akin to the one received three days ahead of the incident. The only difference was that, on December 25 2014, the alarming signal was detected on the plane when it was still on the ground, so technical assistance was fortunately reachable whereas the next one occurred when the plane was flying midair.

Apparently, Flight Augmentation Computer (FAC) had been voluntarily put on reset by the cabin crew which led for the Circuit Breaker (CB) to signal such warnings. Thus, the case has been concluded as one that was caused initially by human error and followed by technical problems that were provoked by such humanly error.