6 ms·

Why did AirAsia fly a crippled jet away from a nearby airport yesterday?

54 points by CPAhem 9y ago

jw2k 9y ago
Al Jazzera has a great exposé on the issues of quality and supply / demand for pilots in Asia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSZ-R5HdPQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSZ-R5HdPQU It's truly frightening, and makes me think twice when any of these airlines come up when I'm searching for flight deals.
- jpatokal 9y ago
  Grain of salt time: Air Asia has one of the better safety records in Asia, with one accident since they started, despite being one of the region's largest carriers and flying into a lot of minor airports. But since we're making generalisations about "Asia", it's worth noting that pilot hiring is screwed up all over the world. Did you know the pilot flying your regional jet in the good old USA is likely barely making minimum wage? https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/skift.com/2013/08/28/the-u-s-airline-pilots-who-barely-make-minimum-wage/amp/ https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/skift.com/2013/08/28/the-u-s... But regardless of how predatory airlines get, pilots have pretty strong incentives not to crash!
  - toomanybeersies 9y ago
    Air Asia is certainly a budget carrier, but unlike other budget carriers, they actually run a tight ship. I've flown with them quite a few times, and know plenty of other people who have flown with them, and none of us have had any complaints. The planes are bare-bones, the seats are small, and you pay for everything on the plane, but their service is perfectly fine, and they usually run on time, or close enough. I can't say the same for Jetstar, all I hear about them is complaints. They seem to always be late, or cancelling flights, or screwing up their customer service and screwing over their customers. I will go out of my way to fly with another airline if possible.
    - ithinkinstereo 9y ago
      You have it backwards. JetStar > AirAsia in terms of safety.
      - Zpalmtree 9y ago
        Considering the minuscule chance of crashing, the parent might put other factors before safety when picking an airline.
        ithinkinstereo 9y ago
        Yes, I see that; but toomanybeersies was replying to jpatokal's post about Air Asia's safety record, so I assumed part of his comment about AA "running a tight ship" is in relation to that. SE Asia carriers -- specifically Indonesian and to a lesser extent Malaysian operators -- have a reputation for cutting corners and poor training. Garuda Airlines, Indonesia's flagship, was even banned from flying to Europe by the EU for poor safety standards [1]. Here's another article ranking airlines by safety: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/The-worlds-safest-airlines-revealed/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/The-worlds-safest-air... It's worth nothing that JetStar is a subsidiary of top-ranked Qantas. 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garuda_Indonesia#European_ban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garuda_Indonesia#European_ban
        toomanybeersies 9y ago
        As jpatokal said though, AirAsia has one of the better safety records of Asian airlines. I was just adding that they're not just safer (apparently), but also a more pleasant airline to fly with. Let's not forget that Qantas also managed to have a turbine failure in 2010. Even if you fly with a reputable airline, there's always the risk of terrorist attacks, suicidal pilots, or getting shot down. At the end of the day, no matter what airline you're with, it's probably safer than driving a car. You're more likely to die in one of the destinations that AirAsia serves than on the plane itself, ~30 Australians die every year in Bali alone.
        jpatokal 9y ago
  - chrismeller 9y ago
    That article is specifically about co-pilots, not the captain. For better or worse the airline pilot market is heavily seniority based, so you're expected to do your time before making anything significant. None of that inherently makes anything more or less safe. Statistically it's still significantly safer than the taxi driving you to the airport.
    - FabHK 9y ago
      > it's still significantly safer than the taxi driving you to the airport. That's a bit of a myth, or a misunderstanding at any rate, as far as I can tell. Jets are much safer than cars per passenger kilometre - so for a given distance, you're better off to go by airliner than by car. However, per vehicle hour, fatality rates are the same order of magnitude (plane is actually 3x worse). So, if you take a 1/2 hr cab ride to a several-hour flight, you're more likely to die on the flight. Source: https://www.uber.com/elevate.pdf https://www.uber.com/elevate.pdf, p. 17
      - YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
        I'd like a better source for that information than Uber, as I'd like a better source for the information on the safety of air travel than air carriers. Btw, neither measure is very good for comparing cars to planes. Airliners carry many times more passengers per kilometer, on average, than cars do; and cars take many times longer to complete a route than airlineres do. If we are to assume that the probability of dying rises the longer you travel then obviously the vehicle that goes faster will have a better record... except of course for the fact that going faster may kill you faster too. Then again, it doesn't make much sense that the probability that a given person will be killed in an accident should vary with the number of people in the same vehicle as them! Overall, what you really need to know to decide whether one or the other type of vehicle is safest is the probability to be involved in a serious accident given that you board a vehicle of that type. I don't think there's a good way to measure that, so measures like the ones above are just proxies, I guess. Which leaves them open to some degree of exploitation from industry bodies, that can claim that their vehicle type is the safest, even if it's really just a matter of perspective.
- org3432 9y ago
  I flew Sriwijaya Air last month, the crew appeared stressed out, irritated, and a bit disorganized. Which if that wasn't concerning enough, their flight safety routine includes asking everyone to pray for a safe flight. And if you thought delayed flights were annoying, how about flights that leave an hour early? Yep, let that one sink in. If you do need to positively get some place without crashing, Garuda Air is a normal international standards airline, and actually a top 10 airline worldwide.
  - org3432 9y ago
    And here's cnn documenting crews asking pasangers to pray for the flight: http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/25/asia/air-asia-flight-turns-back-technical-issue/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/25/asia/air-asia-flight-turns-bac...
- simlevesque 9y ago
  In Canada we train chinese pilots for cheap in a city called St-Hubert... Two of them crashed over a mart a couple of months ago. "It was a storm of good weather [...] doesn’t seem to be a mechanical problem" http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/flight-school-stumped-by-st-bruno-plane-crash-that-killed-a-chinese-student-pilot http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/flight-school-stu...
  - CraftThatBlock 9y ago
    Am from St-Hubert and there's not much training here. We have an airport, but it's main purpose isn't training. That crash was a single off accident, could've happened anywhere (I live about 10 minutes away from the crash site).
sitharus 9y ago
At at guess, because the maximum landing weight of a A330 is 187,000 kg but the maximum takeoff weight is 242,000 kg. They'd have to burn off fuel before landing or risk crushing the landing gear. The A330 doesn't have fuel dumping nozzles as standard equipment so that may not have been an option. Edit: From a slightly dodgy source http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/117765-a330-fuel-consumption.html http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/117765-a330-fuel-consumption.... they'd burn 6 tonnes on takeoff and another ~7 in the 1.5 hours before the engine failed, and approx another 7 before landing but I don't know what the consumption would be like for a single engine return. That gives 20 tonnes total fuel burn. At those figures the 5:40 flight would take 41.5 tonnes of fuel, plus a bit extra.
- skykooler 9y ago
  So why not circle above the airport it's already near, instead of heading off for another one and just hoping it makes it?
  - ubernostrum 9y ago
    If the other engine goes, odds are they're not going to make any airport, even the nearby one, even if they're circling it. If Perth has better facilities for handling the problem, and it's "we'll make it there or we won't make it anywhere", might as well go back to Perth.
  - sitharus 9y ago
    That I can't say. Perhaps Perth was a much better equipped airfield. If you're going to hang around in the air for two hours you may as well get somewhere better able to handle your emergency. The chances of a dual engine failure on an ETOPS-240 (240 minutes single engine operation) certified plane are very small.
    - SyneRyder 9y ago
      Perth isn't an airfield, it'a a major city :) For comparison, Learmonth/Exmouth has a population of ~2000 people, Perth has a population of 2 million.
anatari 9y ago
Why didn't they turn off the engine to stop the vibration? To a layman that would seem safer than having an engine violently shake the wing!
- sifex 9y ago
  They did, assumedly as soon as they could've. The shaking came from the plane having effectively a giant scoop for the air to catch below one of the wings. Source: http://avherald.com/h?article=4aac9f14&opt=0 http://avherald.com/h?article=4aac9f14&opt=0
ithinkinstereo 9y ago
The captain apparently informed the passengers he was praying for their survival and asked that they pray too[1]. This tells you everything you need to know about the quality of AirAsia pilots. Anytime I fly in that area of the world, I make it a point to avoid Malaysian and Indonesian airlines at all costs. Fly Cathay or SingAir and their affiliates if you can. The cost premium is well worth it. 1)http://www.smh.com.au/business/aviation/a-boom-in-midair--then-90-scary-minutes-on-airasia-plane-that-shook-like-a-washing-machine-20170625-gwycan.html http://www.smh.com.au/business/aviation/a-boom-in-midair--th...
- coffeevradar 9y ago
  Some AirAsia pilots are religious!? My word!
  - ithinkinstereo 9y ago
    You're missing the point; it's completely unprofessional.
    - kijin 9y ago
      It depends on the religion and the culture. In some parts of the world, it is considered perfectly normal for people to make religious statements to one another, especially when something dangerous is happening.
  - xupybd 9y ago
    I'm religious, but would refrain from such a statement to avoid creating panic among the passengers. Unless things were really bad, in that case this does speak volumes about the air line.
- goblin89 9y ago
  > This tells you everything you need to know about the quality of AirAsia pilots. Setting aside that this might just have been part of the checklist (given airline’s home country is predominantly Muslim), your comment reads as if you suggest causal relationship between pilot’s abilities and religious views.
KyeRussell 9y ago
I can't even fully grasp what you're getting at. It really feels like you're grasping at straws.
- ithinkinstereo 9y ago
  How so? It's perfectly okay for pilots to be spiritual/religious. It's not okay for pilots to take time, in the middle of dealing with an engine failure, to ask passengers to "pray" for a safe resolution. The golden rule for pilots when dealing with an in-flight emergency is to "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate" [1], not "Pray". https://www.faasafety.gov/gslac/ALC/course_content.aspx?cID=40 https://www.faasafety.gov/gslac/ALC/course_content.aspx?cID=...
  - dingaling 9y ago
    Just as an aside, that's not technically a rule but a guideline. For example at a busy airport, failing to communicate during an emergency might prove more dangerous ( to self and others ) than failing to navigate.
    - jimmywanger 9y ago
      Communicating panic and lack of control to your passengers is never safe. You will be absolutely honest and clear with ATC and any escorts/emergency vehicles regarding your current status, but you cannot ever let that bleed into your communications with the passengers. In all communication with passengers, you need to be about as calm as if you're just taking a walk in the park. "Folks, we're making an unexpected detour to check out some technical issues that came up. We might be delayed a few hours, but the ground crew will book you on the next flight available, and work with you on rescheduling your transfers."
      - lb1lf 9y ago
        To quote Eric Moody, captain of what was at the time the world's largest commercial glider after a quadruple engine failure: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9
uhnuhnuhn 9y ago
It's too early to tell what factors went into the decision to divert to Perth. Aviation is incredibly complex and armchair speculation by people outside the industry is almost always going to get it wrong. As per usual, more well-founded technical discussion on this incident is ongoing over at AV Herald: http://avherald.com/h?comment=4aac9f14&opt=0 http://avherald.com/h?comment=4aac9f14&opt=0

54 points by CPAhem 9y ago

jw2k 9y ago

Al Jazzera has a great exposé on the issues of quality and supply / demand for pilots in Asia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSZ-R5HdPQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSZ-R5HdPQU It's truly frightening, and makes me think twice when any of these airlines come up when I'm searching for flight deals.

jpatokal 9y ago
Grain of salt time: Air Asia has one of the better safety records in Asia, with one accident since they started, despite being one of the region's largest carriers and flying into a lot of minor airports. But since we're making generalisations about "Asia", it's worth noting that pilot hiring is screwed up all over the world. Did you know the pilot flying your regional jet in the good old USA is likely barely making minimum wage? https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/skift.com/2013/08/28/the-u-s-airline-pilots-who-barely-make-minimum-wage/amp/ https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/skift.com/2013/08/28/the-u-s... But regardless of how predatory airlines get, pilots have pretty strong incentives not to crash!
- toomanybeersies 9y ago
  Air Asia is certainly a budget carrier, but unlike other budget carriers, they actually run a tight ship. I've flown with them quite a few times, and know plenty of other people who have flown with them, and none of us have had any complaints. The planes are bare-bones, the seats are small, and you pay for everything on the plane, but their service is perfectly fine, and they usually run on time, or close enough. I can't say the same for Jetstar, all I hear about them is complaints. They seem to always be late, or cancelling flights, or screwing up their customer service and screwing over their customers. I will go out of my way to fly with another airline if possible.
  - ithinkinstereo 9y ago
    You have it backwards. JetStar > AirAsia in terms of safety.
    - Zpalmtree 9y ago
      Considering the minuscule chance of crashing, the parent might put other factors before safety when picking an airline.
      - ithinkinstereo 9y ago
        Yes, I see that; but toomanybeersies was replying to jpatokal's post about Air Asia's safety record, so I assumed part of his comment about AA "running a tight ship" is in relation to that. SE Asia carriers -- specifically Indonesian and to a lesser extent Malaysian operators -- have a reputation for cutting corners and poor training. Garuda Airlines, Indonesia's flagship, was even banned from flying to Europe by the EU for poor safety standards [1]. Here's another article ranking airlines by safety: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/The-worlds-safest-airlines-revealed/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/The-worlds-safest-air... It's worth nothing that JetStar is a subsidiary of top-ranked Qantas. 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garuda_Indonesia#European_ban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garuda_Indonesia#European_ban
        toomanybeersies 9y ago
        As jpatokal said though, AirAsia has one of the better safety records of Asian airlines. I was just adding that they're not just safer (apparently), but also a more pleasant airline to fly with. Let's not forget that Qantas also managed to have a turbine failure in 2010. Even if you fly with a reputable airline, there's always the risk of terrorist attacks, suicidal pilots, or getting shot down. At the end of the day, no matter what airline you're with, it's probably safer than driving a car. You're more likely to die in one of the destinations that AirAsia serves than on the plane itself, ~30 Australians die every year in Bali alone.
        jpatokal 9y ago
- chrismeller 9y ago
  That article is specifically about co-pilots, not the captain. For better or worse the airline pilot market is heavily seniority based, so you're expected to do your time before making anything significant. None of that inherently makes anything more or less safe. Statistically it's still significantly safer than the taxi driving you to the airport.
  - FabHK 9y ago
    > it's still significantly safer than the taxi driving you to the airport. That's a bit of a myth, or a misunderstanding at any rate, as far as I can tell. Jets are much safer than cars per passenger kilometre - so for a given distance, you're better off to go by airliner than by car. However, per vehicle hour, fatality rates are the same order of magnitude (plane is actually 3x worse). So, if you take a 1/2 hr cab ride to a several-hour flight, you're more likely to die on the flight. Source: https://www.uber.com/elevate.pdf https://www.uber.com/elevate.pdf, p. 17
    - YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
      I'd like a better source for that information than Uber, as I'd like a better source for the information on the safety of air travel than air carriers. Btw, neither measure is very good for comparing cars to planes. Airliners carry many times more passengers per kilometer, on average, than cars do; and cars take many times longer to complete a route than airlineres do. If we are to assume that the probability of dying rises the longer you travel then obviously the vehicle that goes faster will have a better record... except of course for the fact that going faster may kill you faster too. Then again, it doesn't make much sense that the probability that a given person will be killed in an accident should vary with the number of people in the same vehicle as them! Overall, what you really need to know to decide whether one or the other type of vehicle is safest is the probability to be involved in a serious accident given that you board a vehicle of that type. I don't think there's a good way to measure that, so measures like the ones above are just proxies, I guess. Which leaves them open to some degree of exploitation from industry bodies, that can claim that their vehicle type is the safest, even if it's really just a matter of perspective.
org3432 9y ago
I flew Sriwijaya Air last month, the crew appeared stressed out, irritated, and a bit disorganized. Which if that wasn't concerning enough, their flight safety routine includes asking everyone to pray for a safe flight. And if you thought delayed flights were annoying, how about flights that leave an hour early? Yep, let that one sink in. If you do need to positively get some place without crashing, Garuda Air is a normal international standards airline, and actually a top 10 airline worldwide.
- org3432 9y ago
  And here's cnn documenting crews asking pasangers to pray for the flight: http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/25/asia/air-asia-flight-turns-back-technical-issue/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/25/asia/air-asia-flight-turns-bac...
simlevesque 9y ago
In Canada we train chinese pilots for cheap in a city called St-Hubert... Two of them crashed over a mart a couple of months ago. "It was a storm of good weather [...] doesn’t seem to be a mechanical problem" http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/flight-school-stumped-by-st-bruno-plane-crash-that-killed-a-chinese-student-pilot http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/flight-school-stu...
- CraftThatBlock 9y ago
  Am from St-Hubert and there's not much training here. We have an airport, but it's main purpose isn't training. That crash was a single off accident, could've happened anywhere (I live about 10 minutes away from the crash site).

sitharus 9y ago

At at guess, because the maximum landing weight of a A330 is 187,000 kg but the maximum takeoff weight is 242,000 kg. They'd have to burn off fuel before landing or risk crushing the landing gear. The A330 doesn't have fuel dumping nozzles as standard equipment so that may not have been an option. Edit: From a slightly dodgy source http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/117765-a330-fuel-consumption.html http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/117765-a330-fuel-consumption.... they'd burn 6 tonnes on takeoff and another ~7 in the 1.5 hours before the engine failed, and approx another 7 before landing but I don't know what the consumption would be like for a single engine return. That gives 20 tonnes total fuel burn. At those figures the 5:40 flight would take 41.5 tonnes of fuel, plus a bit extra.

skykooler 9y ago
So why not circle above the airport it's already near, instead of heading off for another one and just hoping it makes it?
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  If the other engine goes, odds are they're not going to make any airport, even the nearby one, even if they're circling it. If Perth has better facilities for handling the problem, and it's "we'll make it there or we won't make it anywhere", might as well go back to Perth.
- sitharus 9y ago
  That I can't say. Perhaps Perth was a much better equipped airfield. If you're going to hang around in the air for two hours you may as well get somewhere better able to handle your emergency. The chances of a dual engine failure on an ETOPS-240 (240 minutes single engine operation) certified plane are very small.
  - SyneRyder 9y ago
    Perth isn't an airfield, it'a a major city :) For comparison, Learmonth/Exmouth has a population of ~2000 people, Perth has a population of 2 million.

anatari 9y ago

Why didn't they turn off the engine to stop the vibration? To a layman that would seem safer than having an engine violently shake the wing!

sifex 9y ago
They did, assumedly as soon as they could've. The shaking came from the plane having effectively a giant scoop for the air to catch below one of the wings. Source: http://avherald.com/h?article=4aac9f14&opt=0 http://avherald.com/h?article=4aac9f14&opt=0

ithinkinstereo 9y ago

The captain apparently informed the passengers he was praying for their survival and asked that they pray too[1]. This tells you everything you need to know about the quality of AirAsia pilots. Anytime I fly in that area of the world, I make it a point to avoid Malaysian and Indonesian airlines at all costs. Fly Cathay or SingAir and their affiliates if you can. The cost premium is well worth it. 1)http://www.smh.com.au/business/aviation/a-boom-in-midair--then-90-scary-minutes-on-airasia-plane-that-shook-like-a-washing-machine-20170625-gwycan.html http://www.smh.com.au/business/aviation/a-boom-in-midair--th...

coffeevradar 9y ago
Some AirAsia pilots are religious!? My word!
- ithinkinstereo 9y ago
  You're missing the point; it's completely unprofessional.
  - kijin 9y ago
    It depends on the religion and the culture. In some parts of the world, it is considered perfectly normal for people to make religious statements to one another, especially when something dangerous is happening.
- xupybd 9y ago
  I'm religious, but would refrain from such a statement to avoid creating panic among the passengers. Unless things were really bad, in that case this does speak volumes about the air line.
goblin89 9y ago
> This tells you everything you need to know about the quality of AirAsia pilots. Setting aside that this might just have been part of the checklist (given airline’s home country is predominantly Muslim), your comment reads as if you suggest causal relationship between pilot’s abilities and religious views.

KyeRussell 9y ago

I can't even fully grasp what you're getting at. It really feels like you're grasping at straws.

ithinkinstereo 9y ago
How so? It's perfectly okay for pilots to be spiritual/religious. It's not okay for pilots to take time, in the middle of dealing with an engine failure, to ask passengers to "pray" for a safe resolution. The golden rule for pilots when dealing with an in-flight emergency is to "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate" [1], not "Pray". https://www.faasafety.gov/gslac/ALC/course_content.aspx?cID=40 https://www.faasafety.gov/gslac/ALC/course_content.aspx?cID=...
- dingaling 9y ago
  Just as an aside, that's not technically a rule but a guideline. For example at a busy airport, failing to communicate during an emergency might prove more dangerous ( to self and others ) than failing to navigate.
  - jimmywanger 9y ago
    Communicating panic and lack of control to your passengers is never safe. You will be absolutely honest and clear with ATC and any escorts/emergency vehicles regarding your current status, but you cannot ever let that bleed into your communications with the passengers. In all communication with passengers, you need to be about as calm as if you're just taking a walk in the park. "Folks, we're making an unexpected detour to check out some technical issues that came up. We might be delayed a few hours, but the ground crew will book you on the next flight available, and work with you on rescheduling your transfers."
    - lb1lf 9y ago
      To quote Eric Moody, captain of what was at the time the world's largest commercial glider after a quadruple engine failure: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9

uhnuhnuhn 9y ago

It's too early to tell what factors went into the decision to divert to Perth. Aviation is incredibly complex and armchair speculation by people outside the industry is almost always going to get it wrong. As per usual, more well-founded technical discussion on this incident is ongoing over at AV Herald: http://avherald.com/h?comment=4aac9f14&opt=0 http://avherald.com/h?comment=4aac9f14&opt=0