Free Republic

Indonesia said Wednesday it had found the tail of AirAsia Flight 8501, potentially marking a major step towards locating the plane's black boxes and helping shed light on what caused it to crash into the sea ten days ago. Search and rescue agency chief Bambang Soelistyo said he was sure of the discovery after seeing photographs of the underwater wreckage, on which the company logo could be seen. The "black box" flight data recorders, crucial to determining the cause of the crash, are usually housed in an aircraft's tail. "We have successfully obtained part of the plane that has been...

The pilot of AirAsia Flight 8501 may have landed the doomed plane on the ocean surface, only to have it sink in high seas, according to aviation experts, who cited the intact condition of several bodies as possible evidence for the theory. "The emergency locator transmitter (ELT) would work on impact, be that land, sea or the sides of a mountain, and my analysis is it didn't work because there was no major impact during landing," Dudi Sudibyo, a senior editor of aviation magazine Angkasa, told the AFP. "The pilot managed to land it on the sea's surface." The theory...

Marcus Hondro, Digital Journal January 2, 2015There are conflicting opinions on what happened to cause AirAsia Flight QZ 8501 end up on the bottom of the Java Sea with all 162 persons onboard dying, but some believe it first landed safely on the water. That opinion is shared by a few. No emergency locator engaged The biggest reason they believe it landed in the water safely, more than one said, is that the Airbus A320-200 would have sent a signal if it had crashed. Any destructive crash, on land or in water, would send such a signal and the plane's...