Quicksand Fans

From AvHerald
Crash: Indonesia Asia A320 over Java Sea on Dec 28th 2014, aircraft went missing believed to have impacted waters

Still no wreckage, but the shot of the radar scope while they were deviating and climbing shows a groundspeed of around 353, which at that altitude (FL363) is an IAS of around 205 knots; that is dangerously close to stall speed for a 320 at that height. Goddamn Airbus and their flying computers.....this isnt exactly new, either

From Nov 5....

If it aint Boeing, I aint going, is not just a cute line

Need to start equipping the black boxes with more powerful transponders or something. I know the ocean is all big but you'd think in this day and age it'd be a matter of rattling off some GPS coordinates to a satellite and narrowing the crash site down to at most a few square miles. My frigging $500 phone can tell me where I am on earth to within 3 feet. Why can't a 10 million dollar airplane do that?

Way to bookend a year.

Mynock, they can and some airlines do exactly that...it is as always, a matter of cost Vs. benefit as there are damn few cell signals at that altitude unless you are over a high concentration of towers...it has to be satellite based and exceptionally expensive.
This sounds a HELL of a lot like the Air France incident, night flight encounters a thunderstorm and ends up in the sea thanks to the equipment they happened to be flying at the time....
I'm with Kham, a flight control computer overriding pilot commands is far from ready for prime time...especially when it relies entirely on sensors which are prone to input data errors and disruptions as has happened on numerous occasions.
I still hold true to the name bestowed on the A-300, an airplane I have hands on experience with...SCAREbus industries

This is an oldie. The first Public Display of the A320. I really don't want to fly on an Airbus if I have to.
http://youtu.be/-kHa3WNerjU

Could also be an issue with the quality of the pilots......I keep seeing news reports talking about how the airline recently expanded their service area and number of flights. Flying one of these junk piles into a thunderstorm is bad enough, doing so with a tired or noob pilot would classify as suicidal.

And ANOTHER AirAsia plane... This time, stuck in mud after overshooting the runway...

UPDATES on the original link; bodies and debris found within 10km of last radar position



The thing that always comes up now Myn, is there is too much 'push-button' pilots and not enough stick-and-rudder piloting going on. The AF Rio-Paris flight, which splattered into the atlantic; weather and probe issues, but the man sitting in the left seat continued pulling BACK on the fucking stick when it was clear they were in a full stall. You have to be either suicidal or mentally retarded to 'forget' that part of stall recovery basics. Nevermind the fucking Airbus Industrie manual; thats pilotage 101. Then theres the A380 that had an engine failure in the same general area as this current accident; it took LONGER to clear and page through all the computer and sensor alarms than it did to finally come back and land the fucking thing. THEN, when on the ground, they couldnt shut down the port outer from damage caused in the uncontained failure. Y'know I MIGHT be slow, but something simple thats not techtech, like manual fuel cutoff might be an idea, if us dumb humans get any input.....
Yeah, yeah, prob being unfair.....but I'm also not making this shit up, either

I've never even played Microsoft flight simulator and even I know not to put up in a stall lol.
Reminds me of the automotive world. They keep adding more and more computer controlled safety shit and instead of making things better it makes idiots think they can drive 65mph through a blizzard while texting because the car will save them.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Gene Roddenberry's Starfleet ships have a "recorder buoy" that could be jettisoned in just such a circumstance? I'm picturing an aircraft in trouble, and just before things get really interesting either the flight crew or an automatic system (say, an airbag type accelerometer) launches a beacon that parachutes down to the ground or water and sits there pinging away on the emergency frequency.

((checks internet))

Strange- according to Wikipedia, "Most general aviation aircraft in the U.S. are required to carry an ELT, depending upon the type or location of operation, while scheduled flights by scheduled air carriers are not. However, in commercial aircraft, a cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder must contain an Underwater locator beacon."

Someone mentioned cost to the airlines: Again per Wikipedia, going with the SPOT system, using the GlobalStar satellite system, "typical costs are $169 plus a $99/year service fee for basic services or $150/yr for basic services and tracking services, as compared to around $250 for a 406-MHz PLB with no service fee."