AirAsia 8501: Why air travel will never be unsafe
Before I begin, my thoughts and prayer goes out to the operating crew, the passengers on board and the affected families, relatives and our friends at AirAsia Malaysia and AirAsia Indonesia.
It’s extremely unfortunate that with aviation advanced to a level where aircraft increasingly have proved their mettle both in reliability and safety, and more so with the advent of Generation 5+ aircraft such as the Airbus A350XWB, Bombardier C 100, Mitsubishi MRJ, Boeing 787 DreamLiner and the Airbus A380, that we need to respond and face a situation as this.
Our analysis of the latest reports suggest that neither the last known radar/transponder position (the unit that broadcasts the aircraft’s position on secondary radar) of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 is known nor there seems to be any reports of any one of the three emergency locator transmitter’s triggering off an alert to the rescue party of the aircraft’s position.
Forty eight hours after AirAsia Flight QZ8501 was reported missing, based on closer review we believe the aircraft was flying over sea where the maximum sea floor depth ranged between 100 to 200 metres from the surface; and in shallow waters, it certainly does make identifying an aircraft easier, should it have downed within a 200 km radius from last contact point.
The first step or action as part of an aircraft crashing into the sea is the deployment of all four door slides which double as life rafts plus the over wing floatation rafts that are manually activated.
If there would have been an impact, there certainly must appear floatable debris as paper, cloth, rubber parts, life rafts, plastic parts strewn on the sea surface in addition to the specifically designed floatable parts such as the tail fin( an aircraft's tail fin is usually designed to have natural ballasts to help identify and locate the aircraft’s position over water) or the nose cone of the aircraft.
This does not seem to be reported so far.Based on our review of the situation and events occurring after AirAsia Flight QZ8501 was declared missing, keeping the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in view, we believe that the reasonable search and rescue response window till any further decision may be taken should be initiated after a minimum of seventy two hours from the aircraft’s last contact with air traffic control.
At this stage, we would not like to speculate on any relation between AirAsia Flight QZ8501 and the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH370 as it is crucial that the Search And Rescue (SAR) efforts continue and all necessary steps are taken to ensure that the aircraft is found.
Although the two events may seem vaguely similar, with the case of AirAsia Flight QZ8501, a clear intent to request a higher flight level due to weather has been established suggesting the aircraft was in contact with ATC.
Air transport today, is, and will continue to be the safest method of travel. It would be naive to consider widespread panic amongst the travelling public and in turn watch them resort to other transportation modes such as taking a ship or a train, at least in this world we live in.
Be that as it may, there certainly will be concerns raised surrounding events of 2014 and we firmly believe, collectively, regulators, airframer's such as Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, ATR and Embraer; regional governments and the International Civil Organisation may need to come together to holistically address matters which are genuine and affect safety, even if it means grounding airline's, increasing the intensity of training or ensuring better airspace management and more advanced satellite aircraft tracking systems are developed.
An adverse incident and event affecting the safe operation of aircraft can strike almost anywhere and at any time and for this very reason, the aviation industry spends nearly $6 billion dollars each year to ensure pre-emptive actions are created, aircraft fly safer and safety is not compromised in anyway by constantly improving aircraft and aviation technology.