AirAsia QZ8501 - Another missing flight!

[Barnsley]

My worst flight was a Tiger Airways back from Jakarta to Singapore .....

Pilot came over the radio to apologise for the upcoming turbulance , but and I quote

"We dont have enough fuel to fly around the storm!"

Up n down like a brides nightie!!

Still , I appreciated the honesty.

Budget airlines tend not to "overfuel" their planes , this is one of the cost savings, use less fuel on a lighter plane.

[x9200]

Looks like they (might have) found it.
http://www.reddit.com/live/u5bmnl5imzk4/

[ecureilx]

Just returned from a trip within the region using Jetstar. I flew about 4 hours after that missing flight was reported. I tell you, the weather is not to be messed with. My plane had serious turbulence on my way to Singapore due to heavy clouds. There were times I clenched on my seat arm rests because the shaking was terrifying.

More stories will come out .. including some indication that the ATC denied permission for the flight to change course !

Bit of tough times for flying ..

[x9200]

Just returned from a trip within the region using Jetstar. I flew about 4 hours after that missing flight was reported. I tell you, the weather is not to be messed with. My plane had serious turbulence on my way to Singapore due to heavy clouds. There were times I clenched on my seat arm rests because the shaking was terrifying.

More stories will come out .. including some indication that the ATC denied permission for the flight to change course !

Bit of tough times for flying ..

It is said they denied it because there was another plane nearbye flying at 38k. ID ATC talked to ATC in SG to check how high they coul let them go (34k) and after it tried to contact the plane back with no response already.

[the lynx]

Since you mentioned reddit, here's some unbelievable stuff:

Mysterious Chinese blogger sparks online frenzy after 'predicting' that 'black hand' was going to bring down AirAsia jet THIRTEEN days before one vanished

[Wd40]

Quite scary! I wonder if this will make people take fewer vacations by air and restrict travel to only when absolutely essential, especially people from this part of the world.

At a time when oil prices have fallen by half, you would have thought the airline industry is going to boom, but nope.

[ecureilx]

Quite scary! I wonder if this will make people take fewer vacations by air and restrict travel to only when absolutely essential, especially people from this part of the world.

At a time when oil prices have fallen by half, you would have thought the airline industry is going to boom, but nope.

Airline Industry has it's ups and downs

Bird Flu .. Sars .. and as recent as few months ago, fear of Ebola !

I believe the slow down will be temporary, as long as Air Asia does a good PR job and remind people that the plane was bought new, and is fairly young, and has passed all checks, I doubt the flying public who need to fly will be put off. Those who are fence sitters may defer their plans though !!

[the lynx]

Body sighted with debris. S&R team seen preparing body bags in anticipation.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/live-blog-missing-airasia/1557034.html

RIP.

[ecureilx]

Body sighted with debris. S&R team seen preparing body bags in anticipation.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/live-blog-missing-airasia/1557034.html

RIP.

RIP, though with the gathering forces, the recovery will be faster !!

[nanana]

Just returned from a trip within the region using Jetstar. I flew about 4 hours after that missing flight was reported. I tell you, the weather is not to be messed with. My plane had serious turbulence on my way to Singapore due to heavy clouds. There were times I clenched on my seat arm rests because the shaking was terrifying.

glad you arrived safely, lynx.

my friends were stranded in Indonesia after the news of the missing flight broke. reason given was technical issues that they need to rectify...

[Brah]

Well could be as Airbus even did not comment on this only saying it was a hardworking machine, but I would never expect something like this is even possible from the logistic POV.
Besides, it may be some differences to the material fatigue depending whether it happens over longer or shorter periods of time.

not into the details, but the 320 series was built for shorter/high cycle life span

And material fatigue is nowadays extremely rare, as the C and D checks are more detailed now

plus the plastic bus has proven to have been extremely reliable.

As for this plane, I suspect it was a repeat of AF447, as if it has disintegrated the ELTs on surface, the ELTs would have been activated !

What are your (x9200 & ecureilx) takes on the TigerAir fleet?

[x9200]

For what I know about the planes is that it would be more likely for the pilots to get confused rather than for the airplane to break apart because of bad weather. In that sense I agree with ecureilx on some possible parallels with AF447 but I doubt it was the same case. It is as always a chain of events leading to the catastrophe and for AF447 it was like 5-7 separate factors that needed to happen in right order.

I don't think the plane disintegrated at high attitude (explosion of any sort) as the debris seem to be found in relatively small area.

[Wd40]

Tiger air fleet is mostly the A320s. I have flown Tiger the most compared to any airline, somehow their prices are the lowest. Next comes Jetstar, I have flown like twice, Bali and phuket. Scoot to Sydney, once and strangely I have never flown on airasia even for KL and Langkawi, we used Tiger.

[Strong Eagle]

What are your (x9200 & ecureilx) takes on the TigerAir fleet?

TigerAir flies a total of 35 aircraft... all Airbus A319's and A320's. The average age of the fleet is 3.5 years, with the oldest plane being 9 years old. Compare this to the average age of Southwest Airlines (11.9 years) and Delta (16.9 years) and you see that TigerAir is much younger than most airlines.

Their airplanes are maintained by low cost contractors... whether this makes a difference is unknown to me. TigerAir also employs the least paid pilots with minimal hours as compared to other airlines... this could be a factor in very heavy weather and a high pilot load... the lack of experience could make a difference.

[x9200]

What are your (x9200 & ecureilx) takes on the TigerAir fleet?

Sorry, I have never used the TigerAir. I generally avoid budget lines to minimize encounters like this one that effectively saved a number of people that otherwise boarded the QZ8501 flight.