Sriwijaya Air passenger flight missing (09/01/2021)

[Logan Carroll]

Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737 passenger plane feared to have crashed in Indonesia

The passenger plane carrying 62 people is suspected to have plunged into the sea minutes after take-off.

www.bbc.co.uk

Spoiler: Article Text

A passenger plane with more than 50 people on board has gone missing after take-off from the Indonesian capital Jakarta.
The Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737 lost contact en route to Pontianak in West Kalimantan province, officials said.
Flight tracking website Flightradar24.com said the aircraft had lost more than 3,000m (10,000ft) in altitude in less than a minute.
The transport ministry said search and rescue efforts were under way.

 

[edwin_m]

The article has now been updated with the statement that it isn't a 737 Max.

 

[Strathclyder]

The article has now been updated with the statement that it isn't a 737 Max.

Indeed, it has been updated to say that a 737-500 of the 737 Classic series (registration PK-CLC; first flight May 1994) is the aircraft involved here.

 

[Trackman]

The article has now been updated with the statement that it isn't a 737 Max.

That was my first thought as it was soon after take-off, it happened in 2018 over there.

 

[ainsworth74]

News coming out over the last few hours that a Boeing 737 (-500 not a MAX) has gone missing shortly after take off from Jakarta in Indonesia. It doesn't look good as Flightradar24 are reporting that it lost 10,000ft of altitude in less than a minute. Eyewitness reports of at least one explosion, debris and having seen the plane crash into the sea. BBC News have the story:

Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737 passenger plane missing in Indonesia​

A Boeing 737 passenger plane carrying 62 people is believed to have crashed into the sea shortly after take-off from Indonesia's capital Jakarta.

The Sriwijaya Air plane lost contact four minutes into its journey to Pontianak in West Kalimantan province.

Flight tracking website Flightradar24.com said the aircraft lost more than 3,000m (10,000ft) in altitude in less than a minute.

Witnesses said they had seen and heard at least one explosion.

Fisherman Solihin, who goes by one name, told the BBC Indonesian service he had witnessed a crash and his captain decided to return to land.

"The plane fell like lightning into the sea and exploded in the water," he said.

"It was pretty close to us, the shards of a kind of plywood almost hit my ship."

A number of residents of an island near where the plane disappeared told the BBC they had found objects they thought were from the plane.

The transport ministry said search and rescue efforts were under way.

The Indonesian navy has been deployed to look for the aircraft, reports say. Navy official Abdul Rasyid told Reuters news agency it had determined the plane's coordinates and ships had been deployed to the location.

The aircraft is not a 737 Max, the Boeing model that was grounded from March 2019 until last December following two deadly crashes.

...

Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737 passenger plane feared to have crashed in Indonesia

The passenger plane carrying 62 people is suspected to have plunged into the sea minutes after take-off.

www.bbc.co.uk

Considering that the thing basically flew straight down you'd have to figure some sort of catastrophic failure?

The Flightradar24 track is here for those that are interested.

 

[Strathclyder]

News coming out over the last few hours that a Boeing 737 (-500 not a MAX) has gone missing shortly after take off from Jakarta in Indonesia. It doesn't look good as Flightradar24 are reporting that it lost 10,000ft of altitude in less than a minute. Eyewitness reports of at least one explosion, debris and having seen the plane crash into the sea. BBC News have the story:

Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737 passenger plane feared to have crashed in Indonesia

The passenger plane carrying 62 people is suspected to have plunged into the sea minutes after take-off.

www.bbc.co.uk

Considering that the thing basically flew straight down you'd have to figure some sort of catastrophic failure?

The Flightradar24 track is here for those that are interested.

Losing 10,000ft of altitude in less than a minute - the kind of statement that in this context simply does not bear thinking about. Preliminary reports and eyewitness accounts do seem to point to a major failure of an explosive nature which in turn brought the plane down, but it'd be unwise and disrespectful at this early stage to speculate on the precise cause (if that's what it turns out to be) until more details emerge.

The best thing we can do at this time is keep the families, friends and colleagues of those onboard in our thoughts. Can't even begin to imagine how they're feeling right now.

 

[Scotrail314209]

On the topic, the crash site of SJ182 (the flight involved) is very close to that of the Lion Air 737Max that went down.

Therefore I believe any debris discovery will need to be carefully considered as it could be debris from the Lion Air crash that may have surfaced.

 

[LOL The Irony]

Losing 10,000ft of altitude in less than a minute - the kind of statement that in this context simply does not bear thinking about. Preliminary reports and eyewitness accounts do seem to point to a major failure of an explosive nature which in turn brought the plane down, but it'd be unwise and disrespectful at this early stage to speculate on the precise cause (if that's what it turns out to be) until more details emerge.

The stuff about explosions happens a lot. Hollywood has made a trope where every plane crash has to be fiery & explosive and this has spilled over into real life, to the point of eyewitnesses inserting fire & explosions that simply weren't there. So in this case, it's best to wait for a preliminary report.

 

[Strathclyder]

The stuff about explosions happens a lot. Hollywood has made a trope where every plane crash has to be fiery & explosive and this has spilled over into real life, to the point of eyewitnesses inserting fire & explosions that simply weren't there. So in this case, it's best to wait for a preliminary report.

True, and I'll admit I meant to put mechanical failure instead of explosive failure; that will teach me to post when half-asleep. Will amend the post forthwith.

Yes, of course we should wait for a preliminary accident report. That, and like I said, keeping those closest to those onboard in mind in this most harrowing of times.

 

[TravelDream]

A lot of speculation, and frankly nonsense, online about this crash. As pointed out above, this is a -500 series aircraft from two generations before the Max. The preliminary report should be out in the near future which will probably give a good indication of what happened (unless things are leaked beforehand).

One thing that looks clear is that whatever happened, it appears to have been rapid (based on FlightRadar). From a normal take-off and instrument departure to a near vertical dive at around 400 feet per second. It must have been truly terrifying for all onboard. On an explosion, an aircraft hitting the sea at this speed would certainly cause one hell of a boom.

This series of 737 aircraft did have a very serious issue with the rudder system that caused a few crashes (See United 585 and USAir 427). They had a similar flight profile to this one where the rudder pushed the aircraft into a steep dive uncommanded. The aircraft was still in Continental's hands when the system replacement was required though so it would definitely have been upgraded as required.

What's for certain is that Indonesia continues with its appalling airline safety record. Rapid aviation growth along with lax regulation in a region with extreme convective activity is a recipe for disaster and will almost certainly have had some influence on the crash.

 

[dgl]

They have, at least, found the two "black" boxes so we should have some idea soon what happened.

 

[dd1]

The final report on this one is out. News coverage: Seattle Times, BBC. The former starts the article by saying:

The final investigation report into the crash of an older model Boeing 737-500 in Indonesia that killed all 62 people onboard in January 2021 blames a fault in the jet’s autothrottle system — which had repeatedly malfunctioned on the aircraft before the crash — along with an inadequate response from the pilots.

Overreliance by pilots on automated systems that can fail has become an increasingly worrying thread in aviation accidents. In modern airliners, the flying is automated much of the time.

Among the 6 contributing factors that the final report identifies, 2 are as follows (from page 138 of the report):

• The automation complacency and confirmation bias might have led to a decrease in active monitoring which resulted in the thrust lever asymmetry and deviation of the flight path were not being monitored.
• The aircraft rolled to the left instead of to the right as intended while the control wheel deflected to the right and inadequate monitoring of the EADI [Electronic Attitude Direction Indicator] might have created assumption that the aircraft was rolling excessively to the right which resulted in an action that was contrary in restoring the aircraft to safe flight parameters.

Many more details are on Wikipedia.