Air tragedy in Indonesia
An Indonesian plane has crashed into the ocean and all 189 people on board are almost certainly dead.
Articles about the crash are almost unutterably sad: the photos of IDs and cellphones found floating in the water, the grieving and devastated relatives, the rescue operations that are really recovery operations.
The plane was brand new, a Boeing 737 Max 8. Terrorism does not seem to have been part of this, however, because shortly after takeoff the pilots requested a return to the airport, which indicates something was wrong and they knew it. It is likely that the black boxes will be found.
Indonesian airlines had a poor reputation even before this accident, and there are reasons for this:
Aviation in Indonesia serves as a critical means of connecting the thousands of islands throughout the archipelago. Indonesia is the largest archipelagic country in the world…With an estimated population of over 255 million people — making it the world’s fourth-most-populous country — and also due to the growth of the middle-class, the boom of low-cost carriers in the recent decade, and overall economic growth, many domestic travellers shifted from land and sea transport to faster and more comfortable air travel…
However, safety issues continue to be a persistent problem in Indonesian aviation. Several accidents have given Indonesia’s air transport system the reputation of the least safe in the world. Indonesian aviation faces numerous challenges, including poorly maintained, outdated, and often overwhelmed infrastructure, the factor of human error, bad weather, haze problems caused by plantation fires, and volcanic ash spewed by numerous area volcanoes that disrupts air transportation.
RIP.
Reminds me a little of the a TACA airlines flight from Belize to New Orleans in 1988. The 737 was brand new and on approach to NO, the pilot was upset when they flew into a hailstorm and damaged the new paintjob. Then both engines quit.
In one of the most spectacular landings ever, he landed the plane without engines on a New Orleans levee with no injuries.
It turned out that while engines are extremely resilient to rain and hail flame-outs when running at medium or higher power, this plane was operating at low power in an approach descent.
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Nearly all accidents and incidents occur on or near take-offs and landings. Island hopping multiplies those greatly. Commuter turbo-prop flights are bad that way too.
I saw a photo of the debris field/oil slick; it was very small, indicating that the plane went pretty much straight down. Not really a way to survive that.
Given a brand new airplane without multiple landing cycles, and the fact that the pilot requested a return to the airport suggests a mechanical problem. Now what happened after that? Maybe, given past history of Indonesian safety, the crew did not have the proper training to deal with whatever came up. Or, there’s a serious defect in the 737Max. I’m sure Boeing is all over this. Given the debris, it looks like the plane lawn darted in at full power…a very unusual situation.
According to reports, the plane had a technical problem of some type on a previous flight which the airline said it fixed. This might be related to how careful Indonesian aircraft mechanics are, even with brand new planes. And yes, Boeing will find out fast what happened.
Just last night I watched an episode of the tv show ‘Air Disasters’ which featured a crash in Indonesia that involved smoke from fires and a severe lack of visibility exacerbated by massive miscommunications between the pilots and the air traffic controller. In that case it led them to fly into the ground.
I have a friend who trains pilots in Asia. He will not, and will not let his wife, fly on an Asian airline.
Among other things, pilot selection is political in Asia. It’s who you know. Also, his Asian students lack what most American pilots have–a lot of hours in smaller planes before they began training to fly commercial. They’re hired by the airlines, and then they learn to fly. And finally, even though they have tried to implement cockpit management (i.e. the pilot is NOT a god) it doesn’t seem to work in practice the way it does in the US.
Gordon Scott,
Yeah, I’ve watched that ‘Air Disasters’ program quite a bit and there have been numerous episodes where a co-pilot has been brow beaten or is just intimidated by an older pilot and it leads to tragedy. And it is almost always Asian airlines with this problem though to be fair there was an episode a couple weeks ago where a veteran pilot caused a commuter flight to crash in Minnesota because of poor cockpit management.
I trained a fair number of “third world” airline pilots, and saw some of the maintenance practices first hand. All I can say is be careful who you fly with.
As far as limited pilot experience in smaller, simpler aircraft, that is the trend all over. In fact, decades ago British Airways was only hiring inexperienced pilots–or so I was told by someone who should have known– because they wanted to train them the BA way. But, their training was geared to accommodate that.
Especially when dealing with foreign, low time, pilots, the trend in some training environments for some time has been to teach pilots to rely very heavily on the computerized systems. There is a clear problem if the systems are degraded, or if an inexperienced pilot simply gets confused by information overload, and is incapable of going back to basic flying techniques. I don’t know who trained these pilots. Since it was a new airplane, it may or may not have been Boeing. Nor do I know how Boeing handles training for third world pilots. I had a number of friends instructing there in years past, and they were hard core “fly the airplane” and use the fancy stuff when, and if, it helps.
On the other hand, probably the best pilots I ever worked with were Canadian. Everyone of them had come up through the Bush pilot path. Quite likely the ones who were not good–or not lucky until they learned to be good–were dead. Don’t know if that is still the path to the airlines in Canada.
This might be related to how careful Indonesian aircraft mechanics are, even with brand new planes. And yes, Boeing will find out fast what happened.
I wonder if anyone has read Neville Shute’s novel “Round the Bend?” It is about aviation maintenance in Asia in the 1940s and 1950s. He has a number of novels about flying. He was an aeronautical engineer.
On the other hand, probably the best pilots I ever worked with were Canadian.
Reminds me of The Gimli Glider.
Oldflyer. I had a USAF pilot tell me that the best pilots in the world are CARQUAL, whether USN/USMC, or like him CARQUALed in exchange. Because while everyone starts out with the same pool of recruits, the carrier pilots who aren’t the best, wind up as smears on the rear of the LEXINGTON. ( I was told this awhile ago ).
The shrinking military is, I should think, causing problems in airline pilot aquisition. After, someone who was trained by the USAF to fly C-17s in all kinds of weather, should not have too many problems with a 757.
The dependence of Airbus on electronics continues to worry me.