ANOTHER MISSING JET??????
'Lost Contact': AirAsia Jet With 162 Aboard Goes Missing »
AirAsia plane with 161 aboard missing in Indonesia
Search for missing plane with 162 aboard
Those pieces were not in Sunday print, but this was:
A lifetime of lessons, from 30,000 feet
I've got mine at 0 feet right here on earth, and it comes with flying the propaganda pre$$ expre$$ every morning!
Hope Fades After AirAsia Plane Vanishes »
"Southeast Asia searchers confront another mystery of a missing plane; No signs yet; airliner may be on sea floor" by Thomas Fuller, New York Times December 29, 2014
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Rescue teams from across Southeast Asia scoured the waters off Borneo on Monday for an airliner with 162 people on board that disappeared early Sunday, but the Indonesian head of the search effort said he believed the jet was on the sea floor and warned the country’s ability to find it was limited.
“The capability of our equipment is not optimum,” Bambang Soelistyo, the head of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency, said at a news conference Monday.
Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia joined the search-and-rescue operation, an effort that evoked a distressingly familiar mix of grief and mystery nine months after a Malaysia Airlines jetliner disappeared over the Indian Ocean.
Related: Missing flight is third Malaysia-linked incident
Okay, they are many theories regarding what happened to the planes in the two prior incidents of note.
As to the disappearance of MH-370, some say it was shot down by mistake during war game exercises and that it is being covered up. Plausible enough and maybe the truth. Others say hijacked to Diego Garcia to be used in later false flag -- and then MH-17 gets shot down in Ukraine. Also of note is a Malaysian jet from years ago allegedly housed in Israel.
As to MH-17, some have suggested that after hijacking MH-370 the passengers and plane parts were trucked in and planted in Ukraine. Most early reports seem to indicate corpses in advanced state of decay and in unusual positions before the whole investigation was muddied up by the ma$$ media -- which rarely ever mentions it anymore, a telltale sign of cover story stink. The search for truth needs to be yours, although I must say this recent event transcends the meaning of the term coincidence.
The Airbus A320-200, operated by the Indonesian affiliate of AirAsia, a regional budget carrier based in Malaysia, lost contact with ground controllers off the coast of Borneo. And while it seemed premature to make comparisons to the Malaysian jetliner that disappeared in March, the Indonesian authorities could not explain why the AirAsia jet vanished from radar screens about 40 minutes after leaving the Indonesian city of Surabaya around 5:30 a.m.
By midmorning on Monday, Indonesian authorities said they had found no sign of the wreckage.
The weather along the path of Flight 8501 to Singapore was cloudy, and a United States-based weather monitoring service reported a number of lightning strikes along the way. But the monsoon conditions did not seem insurmountable for a modern airliner.
US intelligence officials said they were not aware of any terrorist threats involving the aircraft.
I was going to say UFOs for minute (with tongue firmly in cheek) before saying terrorists (pfft).
The route was a well-traveled part of the Indonesian archipelago; six other aircraft were in the vicinity of Flight 8501 when it disappeared, according to data by Flight-radar24, an organization that tracks aircraft.
Shortly before contact was lost on Sunday, the cockpit crew informed air traffic controllers in Jakarta that they were planning to rise to 38,000 from 32,000 feet to avoid a cloud, Djoko Murjatmodjo, the acting director general of Air Transport at Indonesia’s Ministry of Transportation, said at a news conference in Jakarta.
“At the moment, we don’t know where the exact location is, except that this morning at 6:17, we lost contact,” Djoko said. The Singapore authorities said contact was lost at 6:24 a.m. Jakarta time; the discrepancy has not been explained.
Djoko said the authorities had not detected any emergency distress beacons, which are normally triggered by an accident. “Therefore we cannot assume anything yet,” he said.
Kompas newspaper in Indonesia quoted Djoko as saying that the plane’s request to divert from its flight path was approved but that air traffic controllers denied the request to ascend to 38,000 feet “because of traffic.” He did not elaborate.
The paper also quoted Syamsul Huda, director for aviation and meteorology at the Indonesian state weather agency, as saying that there were “many clouds along the route,” including large cumulonimbus clouds.
Earth Networks, a company that tracks weather conditions across the globe, said it had recorded a number of lightning strikes “near the path” of Flight 8501 on Sunday morning between 6:09 and 6:20.
While it is rare for a lightning strike to cause serious structural damage that threatens the safety of an aircraft, it can disrupt navigation systems, such as magnetic compasses. A lightning flash, particularly at night, can also momentarily disorient the pilots.
The turbulence associated with a big storm can sometimes be severe and sudden shifts in wind direction could disrupt the airflow through a jet engine, potentially causing it to shut down. However, a shutdown of all engines in such a case would be highly unlikely and the Airbus A320 is certified to fly up to three hours on a single engine, in compliance with global aviation safety regulations.
The Malaysian founder of AirAsia, Tony Fernandes, said in a Twitter message on Sunday that he was traveling to Surabaya, where most of the plane’s 155 passengers were from.
Indonesia dispatched at least three warships and five aircraft to search for the plane, Malaysia deployed three boats and three aircraft, and Singapore said it sent a C-130 plane to assist in the search. Australia also offered to lend ships and aircraft to the effort.
AirAsia said in its statement that the passengers included 16 children and one infant. A crew of two pilots and five cabin crew members were also on board. The passengers and crew included 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, one Singaporean, one Malaysian, one Briton, and a French citizen, the airline said.
The captain was identified as Irianto, who like many Indonesians uses only one name. France’s Foreign Ministry said the French citizen was the co-pilot.
Airbus said the aircraft was delivered to the airline in 2008 and it had flown around 13,600 flights. The plane last underwent scheduled maintenance on Nov. 16, AirAsia said.
The missing plane capped a disastrous year for Malaysian airlines. In addition to the Malaysia Airlines jet lost over the Indian Ocean in March, which has yet to be found, another Malaysia Airlines jet was shot down over eastern Ukraine in July. Both of those planes were Boeing 777-200ERs.
But the AirAsia plane’s disappearance was perhaps even more rattling for Indonesia, which has seen explosive growth in air travel despite a troublesome safety record and a string of plane accidents over the years.
While many accidents have not caused fatalities, the recurring headlines and images of dazed passengers swimming ashore have raised concerns abroad that Indonesia’s air safety regulations have failed to keep pace with the industry’s growth.
AirAsia, one of the world’s fastest-growing airlines, has an excellent safety record. Its Indonesian subsidiary is not included on the European safety list, which was most recently updated this month. However, a budget long-haul affiliate, Indonesia AirAsia X, is among the airlines listed.
The A320 family of jets, which includes the A319 and A321, has a good safety record, with just 0.14 fatal accidents per million takeoffs, according to a safety study published by Boeing in August.
American officials said Sunday that no assistance had been requested by the Malaysian government or any of the other authorities conducting the search but that the United States stood ready to help.
Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman, said that President Obama, who is vacationing in Hawaii, had been briefed on the search for the plane and that “White House officials will continue to monitor the situation.”
He's monitoring a lot. Maybe North Korea shot 'em down, huh?
After the plane was reported missing, American law enforcement agents and intelligence analysts began combing through recent collections of phone intercepts, Internet postings, and other communications but found no indications of a terrorist threat or other foul play, officials said.
They can call all that up real quick but can't find the hackers and the perverts?
--more--"
Related: The floods have killed five people and displaced more than 100,000.
Malaysia to give more aid to victims of floods, which have killed 5 people
Looks like fun, huh?
Also see: Indonesian Suitcase
Time to pack it up and move on already?