When news of the missing Air Asia QZ8501 hit the airwaves,
it was greeted with sadness that another bad accident happened. It was just
that except for the shock and the thoughts of the grief of the affected members
related to those on board. Painful yes, and the attention would be at the
families and friends and how to help them cope through this period of
uncertainties, and a likely tragedy. A couple of hours after the aircraft was
declared missing, and missing the ETD at Changi, everyone was preparing for the
worst. It looked that way, and any hope was for miracles to happen.
36 hours have passed, the dust settled, and the picture
becomes clearer. Bits and pieces of the story came together. The families and
friends are not going to have high hopes by now. What appeared to be another
air incident is starting to look not so ordinary again. The initial failure of
a May Day call could have been due to many reasons, lightning strike or an air
explosion that did not give the pilot a chance to make the mandatory call they
were trained to do in an emergency.
Scores of ships and aircraft have been searching the area
for more than one and a half days and came up with nothing. No debris, no oil
slick and most of all, the fail safe beeping from the black boxes were also not
detected. This is mysterious. The boxes were programmed to do exactly this, to
beep when in the water or there is a crash. This is one of the most vital
functions of the black boxes, to lead the way to the crash site, to help and
facilitate in locating the aircraft and the boxes. What is happening?
To reconstruct, there are some uncanny similarities to
MH370. The aircraft was approaching mid point between Jakarta
and Singapore
and an air traffic handover was expected soon. It was in the early hours of the
morning, in darkness. The aircraft made changes in heading and flight levels
though the circumstances in this case were established, due to bad weather. And
the aircraft was gone and no longer on radar. There was no May Day call in both
incidents. And early searches proved in vain, no wreckage, no debris, no oil
slicks. Now to look at the air traffic communication and radar recorders to
determine the exact sequence of events and what transpired between pilot and
air traffic controller. No terrorist agencies claiming responsibility for a job
done.
Some of the dissimilarities, so far nothing confirmed, were
that there was no mad or suicidal pilot flying the aircraft. No sensitive
equipment on board or confirmed yet. No cargoes of mangosteens mentioned. The passenger
manifest was mostly Indonesians, no sensitive PRC Chinese scientists that could
link to international espionage and intrigue.
Here are some unusual news bits. An Indonesian who was
supposed to be on the flight but cancelled his trip, received a strange
farewell message from his friends on board saying ‘Goodbye forever’. Was this
meant to be a cheeky message among friends or something else? Another piece of
news, a sister of a passenger received a message saying that aircraft had
landed in Belitung East and all passengers were safe. This latter message
should be easy to confirm and by now when nothing is heard, is likely to be a hoax.
Kopi Level - Red
