Staff Writer
AirAsia
flight 8501 crashed on Dec. 28, killing all 162 people on board. The Airbus A320-216 was travelling to
Singapore from Surabaya, Indonesia when it went through a patch of rough
weather and crashed near the coast of Borneo.
It appears as if ice formed in the engines of
the plane, causing them to stall. The pilot of the plane apparently requested
to increase altitude, but was denied because there was another plane at a
higher altitude. The flight was also allowed to take off without the required
permits, leading the transportation industry in Indonesia to crack down on the
aviation officials responsible and implement more strict pre-departure
regulations.
However,
a definitive cause cannot be determined until the black box receiver of the
plane is found. Black box receivers contain
diagnostic data from aircrafts plus two hours of audio from the cockpit, and
could be used to determine what happened to the plane when it went down. The weather
has been bad for the past week in the crash area, making it difficult to locate
the plane and black box. More recently,
the weather has improved and the tail of the aircraft has been found. This means that the black box may be
nearby. As of now, only 41 of the bodies
have been recovered, but other countries, such as the United States and
Malaysia, have been assisting in searching for the black box as well as the
remaining casualties and parts of the plane.
