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

a reply to: Cauliflower

The crew may of had some meaningful conversation about what was happening or so they thought.

a reply to: Cauliflower

Automatic spin recovery wouldn't have done much good in this situation.

a reply to: rukia

I actually got my hands on the relevant maintenance log page. They did basically the bare minimum required, and checked it in the parking spot, before signing off on it.

The elevator connections were cleaned due to a "FEEL DIFF PRESS" warning light. This controls the pressure on the control column for the pilot, to provide feedback on how much control movement is being input.

Passengers on the inbound flight Sunday night reported a "roller coaster" as well as a delay before departure due to maintenance. They described odd engine sounds, and passengers getting sick due to the aircraft not being able to hold altitude.

www.nbcnews.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

I'm having flashbacks. en.wikipedia.org...
I got there about 2 hours after the crash and spent 10 days there.

a reply to: JIMC5499

More than one person had flashbacks to that with the dive at the end of the flight. That was a horrible crash.

a reply to: Zaphod58

The US Air crash is what makes me think that the elevator caused this crash.

a reply to: JIMC5499

I'm willing to bet it played a role, but was more of a contributing factor than the primary cause.

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

that sounds like a lot

Add to that 10 employees of Indonesia’s State Audit Agency.

a reply to: queenofswords

It is interesting, but with what came out overnight about the flight in on Sunday, it's even more unlikely this was nothing but an accident.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Cauliflower

Automatic spin recovery wouldn't have done much good in this situation.

If the IAS from the instrument panel was unreliable, I wonder if it was on the slow side since they were going fairly fast. Does 250 knots below 10,000 feet only apply to the US?

This reminds me of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 that had a stripped jack screw and were unable to control the pitch of the plane and as a result and dived into the sea.

Just wondering, lets say the pilots were able to figure out the jack screw assembly was stripped. Could some have survived if they left elevator control alone and slowed the plane enough for a gradual descent into the ocean?

Also, unlike the Hudson river that is smooth, would any commercial ac have a chance of landing in the ocean with the waves?

I would think it would flip them.

a reply to: jacobe001

If the elevator was holding steady and not being pushed around by airflow, they might have been able to. It would have been difficult though.

Ditching in the ocean is an almost impossible task. Unless it's perfectly calm, and almost no wind, and you pull it off perfectly, it's going to go badly. There's a video of a hijacked Ethiopian 767 that tries and ends up cartwheeling and breaking apart.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this aircraft had at least one bad computer. With both unreliable instruments, and a Feel Pressure issue, that's an unusual combination for anything but a bad computer.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: jacobe001

If the elevator was holding steady and not being pushed around by airflow, they might have been able to. It would have been difficult though.

Ditching in the ocean is an almost impossible task. Unless it's perfectly calm, and almost no wind, and you pull it off perfectly, it's going to go badly. There's a video of a hijacked Ethiopian 767 that tries and ends up cartwheeling and breaking apart.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this aircraft had at least one bad computer. With both unreliable instruments, and a Feel Pressure issue, that's an unusual combination for anything but a bad computer.

Thanks
I forgot about the impact that airflow and crosswinds would have on moving the elevator.
I saw the video of Ethiopian plane cartwheeling across the water.
I guess ditching a plane in the ocean is out.

a reply to: jacobe001

It CAN be done, but probably 99% of successful ditchings have been prop, high wing, or had aft mounted engines. Only a couple have been wing mounted engines.

Investigators believe they have found the fuselage. They also report hearing a ping sound that may be from one of the recorders.

www.cnbc.com...

Investigators are looking at possible airspeed discrepancies in the cockpit. Boeing has said they are particularly interested in what readings were displayed in the cockpit. Boeing, the FAA, and several Max operators have said they are unaware of any issues with airspeed readings that would affect the fleet.

www.wsj.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

Boeing has said they are particularly interested in what readings were displayed in the cockpit.

The fly by wire systems might have Pitot tube data along with Ring laser gyro data and possibly even redundant GPS data to vote with. I would be very surprised if a company like Boeing relied heavily on Henry Darcy to measure the speed of their aircraft. Local wind speed, down drafts might be ascertained using newer technology such as the AlliedSignal's RDR-4B integrated into the voting algorithm?

a reply to: Cauliflower

They still use pitot and static systems for speed and altitude. The Max has three systems for measuring. One for the Captain, one for the FO, and a backup system. If the only issue was unreliable airspeed, unless all three were reading different, this aircraft should have been able to return to the airport and land.

Conflicting reports about the director of maintenance with the airline. One report says he was suspended, along with the mechanics that worked on the plane overnight, another says he was fired by the airline.

www.flightglobal.com...

The ADS-B data from JT43, the flight from Bali the night before, has been processed and posted by FR24. The first 11 minutes of the flight are the most interesting. They had a major instrument failure that was far worse than just needing the system being flushed. They were reading over 2,000 fpm or more at points on the vertical speed. The pilots should never have continued with that aircraft.