Hijacking? What do you think? http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...rised-to-fly-route-officials-say-9955457.html AirAsia flight QZ8501 crash: Missing plane was not authorised to fly route, officials say please log in to view this image The airline says it will cooperate full with authorities' investigation into the circumstances that led up to the crash JON STONE Saturday 03 January 2015 PRINT A A A The AirAsia plane that went missing in the Java Sea was not authorised to fly the route on the schedule it took, according to Indonesia’s transport ministry. Flight QZ8501 went missing with 162 people on board whilst flying from Indonesia’s second largest city Surabaya to the city-state of Singapore last weekend. “It violated the route permit given, the schedule given, that’s the problem,” Djoko Murdjatmodjo, the country’s acting director of air transport told the AFP news agency today. The plane’s schedule had not been cleared with officials, he added. It is not clear how the plane came to fly the route without authorisation. please log in to view this image An Indonesian woman cries as she holds a candle during a vigil for the victims in SurabayaAirAsia’s permit to fly the route has been frozen and its licence to fly in Indonesia could be revoked as a result of the revelation. A transport ministry spokesperson said AirAsia was not permitted to fly the route on Sundays. A spokesperson for AirAsia said the company would cooperate with the authorities’ investigation. The revelation comes as search teams looking for wreckage of the flight locate two large objects of interest in the Java Sea. In pictures: Missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 1 of 13 please log in to view this image “bordering on the edge of logic” when it disappeared last Sunday. Earlier in the week, AirAsia chief executive Tony Fernandessuggested the flight had run into "very unique weather” said climate change could be be making flights more risky, particularly tropical regions. So far, only 30 bodies have been recovered by search and rescue teams, who believe that bad weather has scattered debris and corpses over a wide area. please log in to view this image Messages for passengers on board the missing AirAsia flight 8501 are placed on a board at Changi International Airport in SingaporeFamilies have faced an agonising wait to recover their loved ones. Search teams believe most of the plane’s passengers are likely to be trapped inside the aircraft’s fuselage. The first victim of the crash to be identified was Hayati Lutfiah Hamid, who was wearing a nametag on her red uniform. Her identify was informed by a fingerprint check and her body has been returned to her family.
I don't buy it, I thought they radioed in to ask if they could move to a greater altitude to avoid the bad weather and were told they couldn't because of other flights in the airspace above? Why would you do that if you were already ignoring your flight path/schedule. Surely you'd just fly where you wanted anyway since you were already doing that? Also, is the suggestion that a plane got fuelled, loaded with passengers, given permission to taxi to the runway and takeoff, and then flew for a while without permission to do what it was doing without any military aircraft being sent to intercept them?
It was expected on the arrivals board at it's destination, makes it very unlikely it wasn't meant to going to that airport. Also it will have logged a flight plan and if it wasn't going to that destination it would have been noticed and reported by now.
This hasn't anything to do with the crash whatsoever. It seems that they are not allowed to fly that route on Sundays as part of their permit. Their "permit" refers to a commercial trade agreement which the airport authority and air traffic control have no say in. It could be that another airline may have sole permission to fly passengers on Sundays. It doesn't stop Air Asia flying between the two places ... it doesn't allow them to take paying passengers. It would have no effect on the safety of plane, crew or passengers. They would log their flight plan as usual. They would be allocated take off and landing slots just like any one else. You or I could do exactly the same with our private jets. The only thing that people might say is that if Air Asia were sticking to the rules they wouldn't have been in that place at that time. This seems to be an "act of God", but I am sure that Air Asia will be blamed.
This sounds like a real technicality to me I don't believe that this was the first time that AA had flown this route on this particular day of the week; if AA had transgressed their permit previously, why hadn't the Indonesian authorities taken action at the time? Something doesn't quite add up here
I have never been a big fan of the January transfer window. I would prefer just a shorter summer transfer window, one that closes a couple of weeks before the beginning of the new season. As for all the speculation about if Tony will sanction any transfers right now I could not really care. All that really matters is 162 passengers have lost their life's and for me that puts everything into perspective. Life really is just too short!
Given the importance of insurance in the aviation industry, I cannot believe that Air Asia would make a conscious decision to fly a particular route on a particular day without believing, very firmly, that they are adequately insured. You don't build up a successful, global business like that by being rank amateurs.