AirAsia flight crash: Investigators reveal information on blackbox probe

Jakarta, Jan 21: Month after the crash AirAsia flight, investigators on Tuesday, Jan 20 finally revealed what exactly happened minutes before the crash into the Java Sea.

According to investigating officials, the plane had climbed at excessive speeds to an unusually high altitude before plunging and disappearing from radar.

A parliamentary commission, which asked about the investigation report, was told that the radar data showed that the Airbus A320-200 was climbing at about 6,000 feet a minute before it crashed killing all 162 people aboard.

Media report quoted officials as saying, "It is not normal to climb like that; it's very rare for commercial planes, which normally climb just 1,000 to 2,000 feet per minute. It can only be done by a fighter jet."

Meanwhile, sources on the condition anonymity also said, "The warning alarms, we can say, were screaming, while in the background they (the pilot and co-pilot) were busy trying to recover." [AirAsia jet's alarms 'screaming' before crash: investigator]

The investigator, from Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC), added that the pilots' voices were drowned out by the sound of the alarms.

The two black boxes -- the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder -- were recovered last week after a lengthy search, and investigators are examining them.

Investigators have listened to the data from the cockpit voice recorder, and are also looking at a wealth of information from the flight data recorder, which monitors every major part of the plane.

OneIndia News
(With agency inputs)