Indonesia Lion Air flight crashes en route from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

There needs to be a reinforcement of basic airmanship and in a hurry. A number of these accidents have been completely avoidable if they had just been able to fly by the seat of their pants instead of being totally reliant on instruments and computers.

originally posted by: Agit8dChop
So Indonesia are reporting 20 financial officials for the government were onboard...

that sounds like a lot

20 financial officials makes one go 'hmmmm'.

I have been reading about the 1MDB probe that has reopened and widened this year regarding the Malaysia scandal of 2015. A basic explanation can be summarized here 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal

There is an Indonesia connection to it.

Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil, a key figure linked to the case the Malaysian government is building against former Prime Minister Najib Razak, has been travelling in and out of Indonesia over the past three years, sources said.

www.straitstimes.com...

There is also a Hollywood connection:
www.cbsnews.com...

www.thedailybeast.com...

www.breitbart.com...

a reply to: queenofswords

You're also talking about an airline that was blacklisted until last year, that has a history of crashing or damaging new aircraft, in a part of the world known for sketchy aircraft maintenance practices.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Definitely understood.

I was agreeing with another poster that 20 FINANCE officials on board is definitely something to go "..hmmm" about.

I agree with some other posters that this looks more like an aircraft problem than a pilot error. I suspect there will be more than one system failure and weather does not appear to be a factor. The steep rate of dive is indicative of loss of power combined with loss of control. The pilots had enough flight experience to disengage aircraft auto systems in case of failure but combined with multiple systems failure may have been to much at low altitude. We'll have to wait for the crash report and for the team to sequence the exact order of the events as to what went wrong and when. My best,

The 20 FINANCE officials still have me in "conspiracy" mode. Sabotage?
Can these planes be hacked?

So sad for all that were lost. My heart is especially heavy for the 2 infants and 1 child aboard, but loss of any life in such a manner is heart wrenching.

The main wreckage still hasn't been found. At least 6 remains have been recovered and brought to shore. The water in the area is fairly shallow, so it isn't expected to take long to find it.

a reply to: queenofswords

Depends on who you talk to. There were reports that a team successfully hacked a 757 from on board, but no details were given on how or what they had access to once they did. It would be extremely hard to take the aircraft over and do much with it though.

According to the BBC, instrument failure is the likely cause. However, the most recent article mentions that the there has been a history of illegal stimulant usage by pilots in the past. It could be a combination of these factors. While I agree that 20 financial officials on board is a bit interesting, there is no current evidence to suggest that hacking a plane can crash it, as Zaphod said. At least not easily. Personally, I wonder if perhaps these lower-cost airlines buy defective planes in order to save money.

Regardless, may those who lost their lives rest in peace.

a reply to: rukia

This particular aircraft was leased, and was delivered new in mid-August from Boeing. It's a lot more likely that they're cutting corners on maintenance than getting defective aircraft.

Looking at the flight history, the flight prior, which had the instrument problems, arrived at 2256. Figure an hour to get it deplaned and cleared before maintenance could get their hands on it, and we're up to midnight. That would give them roughly four hours before they had to hand it back over to begin preparations for departure, to identify the problem, troubleshoot the cause, and fix it. That's not a lot of time for an instrument issue.

Looking at the maintenance log, the maintenance crew flushed the air data module for the L/H pitot tube and static port. They also checked and cleaned the connections for the elevator controls.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
They also checked and cleaned the connections for the elevator controls.

Uncommanded elevator actuation or elevator failure could make an aircraft do what you were referring to Zap.

a reply to: JIMC5499

I'm starting to lean towards it being a combination of the two. Their speed was pretty high the entire flight. So either they were having elevator problems and tried to keep their speed up to help, or they had bad speed data and were fighting elevator issues at the same time. As they started to descend there was a sudden +7500+ fpm nose up, followed by a vertical descent.

Lion Air has suspended talks with Boeing over the delivery of 10 Max aircraft until after the investigation is complete.

www.pakistanpoint.com...

Twenty- one bags with remains and debris have been brought ashore so far. The crew requested to return to the airport, but didn't declare an emergency or appear to be in trouble when they made the request.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Most modern aircraft have automatic spin recovery don't they?
We learned about that in ground school back in 1970 but any control override in the fly by wire could be suspect.

There should be a good chance of getting boxes and data from this crash.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I think you're right about them cutting corners on maintenance. Apparently this plane was almost three months old--the time during which new aircraft can have problems which are usually fixed.

a reply to: roadgravel

If the cargo shifted, the automatic override responses can be analyzed.
That doesn't happen very often fortunately.