9 ms·
Lion Air crash: Boeing 737 plane crashes in sea off Jakarta
- muks 8y agoCondolences, but how is this hacker news? There's BBC and CNN for this sort of stuff.
- Insanity 8y agoBecause quite a few people here are into aircraft.
- laken 8y agoHacker News guidelines are summarized by this statement: "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." I'd agree that if it was an article about a Cessna 172 crashing, it wouldn't belong on Hacker News, but in this case, the interesting fact about this aircraft accident is that it's a brand new airliner model, one that has never been in an accident before. Furthermore, we have some basic flight data, so perhaps a bored hacker might decide to debug what they think happened using this data.
- wiradikusuma 8y ago"My airlines is the worst in the world, but you have no choice." — the founder. https://ekonomi.kompas.com/read/2015/02/21/152425026/Rusdi.Kirana.di.Balik.Lion.Air.3.Maskapai.Saya.Paling.Buruk.di.Dunia.tetapi.Anda.Tak.Punya.Pilihan https://ekonomi.kompas.com/read/2015/02/21/152425026/Rusdi.K... (sorry I can't find equivalent story in English)
- chx 8y agoThat was in 2015 but they completed the IOTA IASA since and that _should_ mean it's a safe airline.
- gowld 8y agoMaybe. Reputation beats certification.
- tasuki 8y agoThat's a very humble thing to say for a founder.
- lugg 8y agoI read it as more sadistic. But now I'm not sure which of us is right.
- randyrand 8y ago“My airline is the worst in the world, but there is no choice.” Is this closer to what’s intended?
- curun1r 8y agoI've only got the one data point, but I had a bit of a nightmare flying experience with Wings Air, a part of the Lion Air group. I was flying from Denpasar to Labuan Bajo and Wings was one of two airlines that I could've chosen. It started out as delays with no explanation of why. They finally called it for the night, explained that it was a mechanical issue and they needed to fly in a different plane which wouldn't arrive until the next morning. The put us up in a dingy hotel in Denpasar and told us it would be a 9am flight the next morning. So I went to sleep to wake up in time. They then delivered our luggage to the hotel without telling most of us. At about 2am, I got a knock on my door from another passenger that I'd become friendly with during the delay. She'd had difficulty sleeping and had gone down to the lounge to read only to hear that the flight was now scheduled for 3am and that we'd need to leave immediately. Had she not alerted me, I'd have been one of the many people in the hotel that were left there. As it was, only my luggage was left there and it took me calling the hotel 3 days later to have them search before the airline"found" it almost a week later. The whole thing was a shitshow and I can't recommend strongly enough choosing any other airline if you've got the choice.
- angled 8y agofdr wrote on pprune (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/614857-indonesian-aircraft-missing-off-jakarta-3.html#53 https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/614857-indonesian-aircra...) """ Hmmm. ADC/Pitot or load.... P/S, Pitot main issue (alt is more stable than speed > static is OK). Maybe. OK, the DFDR will be telling, probably as much as the CVR. This plane was in distress from 300' AMSL, and has every indication of a longitudinal stability issue, e.g., stick force gradient deal. Immediately, forget about directional issues, this isnt an engine, TR, asymmetric slat, flap or other issue, look closely at the loadsheet, and the load control. The ADSB data is indicating an aircraft with negligible static stability, and that points towards a loading error, with a CG near neutral point. Should you ever have that happen, it is not fun; helicopter pilots get laughed at as that is what they are used to every day, which is why they are generally odd people. If you have an AP, the plane will do better on AP often than a driver at the wheel. If you have flaps, get the TE flaps out, or all flaps the Cp is shifted aft. Don't go to altitude, don't burn CWT gas, move pax fwd if needs be, but mainly, be very careful with your flight control inputs, planes that are unstable are fun to fly for very short times. Do not go fast, unless you have an ejector seat. As an AAI I normally would suggest awaiting data release before sprouting comment pointedly, but this is already shown in the data. Forget suicide etc, this plane had pitch instability from the get go. I have investigated a number of aircraft loading events, and have also been on the receiving end of 2 of my very own. Have sympathy for the poor flight crew, unless they were form a flight test background it is unreasonable to critique their performance. Could an airline train crews to deal with load errors? I can say that is possible, in fact it is not even hard, and last count, I had investigated over a dozen events... need to dust off the confuser for an exact number, but I can recall 12 offhand. Will airlines train crew to handle such cases? highly unlikely, the industry is not after competency above that mandated by the regulator. Load error, possible Pitot. sad day. """
- codeduck 8y agoHorrendous way to go - in control of an aircraft that is not responding as your instincts and training are saying it should.
- coryfklein 8y agoWikipedia tells me that "pitot" refers to the device for measuring airspeed. Does anybody know what "load" means in this context?
- himlion 8y agoFriend of mine flew for them up until a few years ago. Said it was a total shitshow.
- FabHK 8y agoFWIW, I find it crude and tactless to show identifiable personal possessions of the victims. Surprised that the BBC stoops so low. (Note: a friend of mine personally knew several students on board via AIESEC, a student organisation. RIP.)
- anc84 8y agoI felt the same as I saw the photo. What a disgustingly heartless way of treating the relatives or even the depicted.
- gowld 8y agoI'm more concerned by the heartlessness of running a chronically unsafe airline and glossing over the reality of the suffering it wreaks.
- FabHK 8y agoThat's a good point. In general, aviation safety is amazing, and an emotional response to an accident (as after MH 370) doesn't help. In Indonesia, on the other hand, corruption and lax attitudes to safety seem wide spread, and political pressure to rectify the situation might improve things.
- grkvlt 8y agothe bodies depicted in such images are not capable of caring about how they are treated anymore, though. i agree that often relatives get upset about images of their loved ones bodies being used in newspapers or tv, but sometimes the journalists have to weigh the public interest value of showing the image against potential distress. for example, the famous vietnam 'napalm girl' photograph. i'm not suggesting a return to 'if it bleeds, it leads' shock-value journalism, just pointing out that sometimes distasteful images have real value and should not be censored.
- FabHK 8y agoAgreed, but I think for the most part aviation safety is well under control, and there's not need to shock people into action. However, Indonesia might well be an exception. Note also, though, that this only works if shocking pictures are used very sparingly, and only really to make an important point.
- NotCamelCase 8y agoI wonder how pilots feel reading stuff like this. It must be tough.. As a mere passenger whose nearest flight will be in ~3 months, I am scared to death.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- schmookeeg 8y agoI read accident reporting and investigations ravenously. Even a scrap or an anecdote may help me one day. As a pilot who has been forced to land a plane off-airport, you would be amazed at how the brain, trying to save itself, can pull any tiny potentially helpful bit of information from memory and present it for your consideration and use. I collect aviation accident factoids like a magpie collects shiny folderol. :)
- NotCamelCase 8y agoThat's a good point I didn't consider. Hope you'll never ever need those factoids though! :)
- cyberferret 8y agoAs another poster mentioned above - most pilots tend to study accident reports to file them away in their memory for later possible reference. Any instance of crew communication breakdown or wrong decision making can happen again, and knowledge that it did happen before will lessen the chances in the future. I see a lot of comments on Twitter today along the lines of "What is happening in aviation these days??", and the answer is really "Nothing really". Commercial flying is safer than it ever has, and it is telling that an accident such as this is garnering so much attention because they don't really happen all that often, so air crashes seem worse because they are not always in the news as they were decades ago. You have to consider the fact that these days, at any particular second of any day, there are more than a million people who are airborne at the same time. That is a city load of people who are not in contact with the ground at any given time. Given that - the low number of fatalities is remarkable indeed.
- modzu 8y agowhy is this on hackernews? "What to Submit On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic"
- isostatic 8y agoIndeed, once the cause is in it may be interesting (things like frozen pitots, invisible volcanic ash, etc). Until then it's just another speculation into yet another shoddy carrier crashing.
- alexanderMB 8y agoThis is an eyewitness statement watching the plane arount at 6.25 est time: 1. The plane was tilting left side that the letter LION was clearly visible. 2. The nose cockpict was pointing UPWARDS. 3. There was BLACK SMOKE coming out from near the wheels. 4. There was a hole on the plane (?) 5. The engine noise was some one not loud and strangely "broken" What does this tell us if it were true? Simple: Turbine failure cause by shattered blades! 1. Any blades fracture would disintegrated the whole engine into pieces at about 20K RPM. 2.Some of the catastrohic debris might hit the body plane itself and cause punctured. 3. The black smoke would confirm such hypothesis, a hydraulic failure would never cause any smoke. 4. Pilot tried to balance the doom plane by pointing the plane upwards but the thrust was not available. 5. Electrical short circuited cause by the catastrophic turbin blade failure would make the whole electrical,electronic and hydraulic dead as well. 6. It is very likely that only one turbine is remaining but the whole system was lost to control the descent. 7. At such low altitude which less than 5000 feet, the estimated 70 ton plane would not have the time to do any meaningful repair. 8. Pilot and crew would prioritize saving the plane and passenger instead of radioing a may day.
- unionemployee 8y agohttps://www.facebook.com/jaime.oliver.5/videos/10155823035916500/ https://www.facebook.com/jaime.oliver.5/videos/1015582303591...
- eigenvector 8y agoHere is a BBC article with more info (and being updated): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46014463 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46014463 At present there is no info to indicate that the aircraft type (737 MAX) is material to the cause of the incident.
- dang 8y agoOk, we've switched to that from https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1056733416102789120 https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1056733416102789120.
- InTheArena 8y agoThere will be some significant scrutiny on the plane( it’s both a new plane and a new model of plane) even though lion air has a pretty bad reputation. The carrier is blacklisted in the EU for example. International air investigation is usually get things right. Every now and then politics will interfere, but the process doesn’t change that much based on carrier and plane..
- glenneroo 8y agoWas blacklisted you mean. From the article: "Established in 1999, it has had issues of safety and poor management in the past and was banned from flying into European airspace until 2016."
- bahro 8y agoWell this is a pretty heartless way to refer to a disaster involving 188 people. (Title currently: "Lion Air's brand new Boeing 737 MAX8 crashes into sea")
- dang 8y ago"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- paulcole 8y agoReminds me of, “Train Thankfully Unharmed In Crash That Killed One Man”. https://local.theonion.com/autistic-reporter-train-thankfully-unharmed-in-crash-t-1819595010 https://local.theonion.com/autistic-reporter-train-thankfull...
- larkeith 8y agoI don't know that there's a good way to be both concise and informative about disasters like this without being somewhat heartless, especially when the event is so recent. Having a less-editorialized title would definitely help, though - there's something particularly callous about implicit speculation so soon.
- ronnier 8y agoSpeed and altitude compared to the previous day. Immediate problems from the start. Pilot radioed a technical problem. Plane was delivered in August. https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1151x734/3_c4607b5fa54c9ce9d2ba78abc73c901bc9efc3a4.gif https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1151x734/3... (Credit to a comment on Reddit here https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/9s9752/indonesian_aircraft_missing_off_jakarta/ https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/9s9752/indonesian...)
- avip 8y agoIs there some real-time anomaly detection observing that data? It looks like nothing is ok as soon as 90 seconds in.
- matt4077 8y agoI just noticed Safari went all the way from no favicons in tabs to animated favicons in tabs. And in this case, it's being used somewhat distasteful.
- larkeith 8y agoDoes anyone know how the day's speed/altitude graph compare to a regular day of heavy weather and turbulence?
- dx034 8y agoWeather won't affect that pattern much. Winds will affect ground speed but the air speed (aircraft relative to sorrounding air) will be very similar. Other factors such as rain and clouds also shouldn't affect climb rates much. So overall the upper, smooth, graph would be representative for departures at nearly every weather. In this case, the very high speed at low altitudes could indicate that they had the expected amount of thrust but couldn't climb, maybe due to issues with controls.
- phumbe 8y agoThe granular data from FlightRadar24 paints an especially grim picture: a descent of 30,000 feet per minute (fpm) at about 400 feet above the ground. That seems like it might be erroneous given how high it is, but -16,896 fpm at 2500 feet seems plausible. Source: https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/flightradar24-data-regarding-lion-air-flight-jt610/ https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/flightradar24-data-regard...
- jey 8y agoAviation Herald entry: https://avherald.com/h?article=4bf90724&opt=0 https://avherald.com/h?article=4bf90724&opt=0
- georgeam 8y agoAirliners.net: http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1407217 http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1407217
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- United857 8y ago[deleted]
- RL_Quine 8y ago> Given this is a near brand new aircraft, structural failure caused by a explosive device is certainly possible :( Don't be daft, read the information presented rather than just making things up. There's nothing about a very wobbly assent that suggests a sudden failure, from take off they're struggling and changing air speed dramatically. There's numerous graphs posted in this thread comparing the take offs with the previous days which shows the stark difference. Clearly, radio contact was lost "suddenly" because it was doing 550 KM/h straight into the water. The last transponder ping would have been a couple of seconds before impact with the ground.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- phumbe 8y agoOne of my other comments on this thread includes a link to data that suggests that the aircraft's ADS-B transmitter was working until the end. The vertical speed transmitted by the ADS-B makes in-flight breakup believable, but how likely is it that the ADS-B would continue transmitting in that case? Not very, I'd guess. Fun fact: Flight Levels are really only used at 18000 feet and above. That's where local barometric pressure is ignored and aircraft use the standard value. I believe it's a global standard to use local barometric pressure below 18000.
- Stratoscope 8y ago> Fun fact: Flight Levels are really only used at 18000 feet and above. That's where local barometric pressure is ignored and aircraft use the standard value. I believe it's a global standard to use local barometric pressure below 18000. I don't know if there are any fun facts in this particular conversation. May the crash victims rest in peace, and may their families, friends, and colleagues somehow find peace after this tragedy. In any case, what you're referring to is the Transition Altitude, where pilots switch from local altimeter settings to a standard setting of 29.92. In the US and Canada, this is 18,000 feet, but it varies in other countries. In Australia, for example, the transition altitude is 10,000 feet. The transition altitude in any country is supposed to be above the highest elevation of any point in the country. That's the theory anyway: the highest elevation in Australia is 7,310 feet, but the highest elevation in North America is Denali (Mount McKinley) at 20,310 feet - which puts it up in the flight levels. Leaving that aside, the idea is that when you're flying at lower altitudes, you not only want to know your altitude relative to other aircraft to avoid collisions, you also want to know if you will clear any obstacles on the ground. So you set your altimeter to reflect current local air pressure to get an accurate altitude above mean sea level, which also lets you determine your altitude above ground level. But once you're well clear of any terrain, this isn't helpful. It simplifies things to have all aircraft use a common altimeter setting, even if it doesn't truly reflect local conditions. In the Flight Levels, you are no longer worried about the ground, you're only worried about other aircraft. (And Denali!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_level#Transition_altitude https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_level#Transition_altitu...
- mholt 8y agoFlightRadar24 has a more detailed chart of the telemetry with a link to the granular data: "We have processed the granular ADS-B data received from #JT610. Last signal was received at 23:31:56.030 UTC from -5.81346, 107.12698 at 425 ft AMSL. Final ADS-B data received from the aircraft indicates a high rate of descent." https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1056758281929154565 https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1056758281929154565 (FlightRadar24: "A word of caution: ADS-B data can be incredibly useful, but to speculate on a cause at this point would be conjecture. The Flight data recorder and Cockpit voice recorder will play an important role in the investigation, as always. #JT610")
- United857 8y agoGiven the erratic altitude and speed throughout the entirety of flight, and the fact the pilots radioed to turn back pretty early on, could it have been something similar to the Peruvian flight where the static ports were covered, leading to lack of basic altitude and speed data and causing a crash? (The other possibility I can think of is icing, but since Indonesia is a tropical country, and the flight never got above 5000 feet or so, I'm guessing it wasn't.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroper%C3%BA_Flight_603 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroper%C3%BA_Flight_603
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- orliesaurus 8y agoOh no :( Condoleances to the familiy of the victims, it's really sad how that part of the world keeps having really bad plane crashes year after year
- robjan 8y agoTo be honest, there are very few plane crashes every year. People just find them more shocking because lots of people are involved and the media always refers to other incidents when reporting on one.
- RL_Quine 8y agoGiven the number of flights that happen every day, the number is really quite low. Driving has a much higher fatality and injury rate than flying.
- Gigacore 8y agoBoeing's official statement is out - http://boeing.mediaroom.com/news-releases-statements?item=130327 http://boeing.mediaroom.com/news-releases-statements?item=13...
- downandout 8y agotl;dr: "Sorry about the crash. Please don't contact us".
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- FabHK 8y agoWell, ICAO rules establish who runs the investigation, namely the civil aviation authority of the state of occurrence. Other states (state of registry, operator, manufacture) might participate, or the state of occurrence might choose to delegate to them. But the official responsibility for the investigation lies with Indonesia for now. https://www.icao.int/about-icao/FAQ/Pages/icao-frequently-asked-questions-faq-10.aspx https://www.icao.int/about-icao/FAQ/Pages/icao-frequently-as...
- downandout 8y agoI didn't say the statement wasn't factually accurate. It's just a little cold, throwing "thoughts and prayers" [1] in with a statement effectively saying don't call us, call someone else. [1] https://youtu.be/T9SKkd79AjQ?t=52 https://youtu.be/T9SKkd79AjQ?t=52
- FabHK 8y agoYeah, and I didn't mean to imply that your summary was inaccurate or tone-deaf; just trying to explain why Boeing basically says "don't call us, call them". Your (and Jeselnik's) criticism of the "thoughts and prayers" cliché is apt, though note one big difference: some of those senators and members of the house that offer "thoughts and prayers" after yet another fatal shooting take NRA money and/or actively block anti-gun legislation, while Boeing and Airbus are genuinely doing all they can to avoid plane crashes, I'd think. So the aircraft manufacturers are much less cynical and hypocritical in offering up that cliché than politicians (faint praise, indeed). EDIT: NRA, not NPR, lol
- MarkMc 8y agoI regularly travel to Jakarta - and I try to avoid the low-cost Indonesian airlines like Lion Air because of their very poor safety record. For example, AirAsia didn't think it needed to give its pilots upset recovery training until flight 8501 crashed: In the wake of the Air France crash, the [Australian] Civil Aviation Safety Authority required that pilots receive upset recovery training, although it was long a standard practice at Australian airlines. The AirAsia Indonesia crash report said Indonesia's Director General of Civil Aviation has no such requirement and neither of the pilots were trained in upset recovery on an A320. https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/why-the-airasia-crash-report-should-serve-as-a-wakeup-call-for-travellers-20151202-gld94f.html https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/why-the-airasia-cr...
- jpatokal 8y agoAll things considered -- and remember, these airlines are flying in poor countries where a lot of the infra for air traffic control, airports etc is not up to scratch -- AirAsia has a reasonable safety record: the only major crash suffered by the entire group (not just Indonesia AirAsia) was Flight 8501: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia_AirAsia_Flight_8501 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia_AirAsia_Flight_8501 Last I checked, AA uses Lufthansa Technik for its maintenance, so there's good third-party oversight. You can't say the same for Lion Air, which seems to write off its planes on an alarmingly regular basis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air#Incidents_and_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air#Incidents_and_acciden...
- camillomiller 8y agoI’ve flown multiple times within Vietnam and in Thailand with AirAsia, always a great experience. I think it’s the Australian-run branch though. Edit: oh, ok, did some research. There’s no Australian Air Asia, no idea where I picked that up. Leaving it here in case anyone had the same misunderstanding.
- eightysixfour 8y agoVietnam Airlines has the most aggressive flight profiles I have ever ridden on. On my two domestic flights they took off and landed like it was roller coaster.