Adam Air Crash
Jan 18th, 2007, in News, by PatungThe possible causes of the Adam Air crash.
Adam Air flight KI 574, in which 96 passengers and six crew were travelling from Surabaya, East Java to Manado, North Sulawesi on January 1st 2007, crashed somewhere off the coast of western Sulawesi. Three possible scenarios have been suggested for the disaster:
- explosion, whether deliberate (like a bomb) or accidental (like fuel catching fire)
- structure failure (like something falling off)
- weather penetration (like extreme winds)
No evidence has been found that suggests an explosion occurred, the fragments of the plane discovered so far indicate no burn damage.
There remains the other two scenarios which could be combined into one, that is extreme weather conditions caused structural damage, or either could have occurred separately, says Frans Wenas of the Komite Nasional Keselamatan Transportasi, KNKT, National Transportation Safety Committee.
Planes have to fly level, or flat, and strong winds could have pushed flight 574 into an abnormal position, which may have resulted in structural damage causing the plane to dip and crash into the sea. Or even without bad weather some part of the plane could have fallen off, again pushing the craft into an unusual position. detik
71 Comments on “Adam Air Crash”
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Butterfly says:
Well, here we go. With this latest crash of the jet that has killed at least 49 people -and there were survivors – HA! the Indonesian government can’t lie about this one! President Yudhoyono is interestingly in THIS case using the term of possible “nontechnical problems” AKA sabotage. Where are all the dead for Adam Air-they just Mysteriously all disappeared. What Crap!
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Wiranto says:
A tragic accident that could have been avoided. Yet another one happen as they were desperately looking for the answers why AdamAir crashed; the Garuda tragedy will add to the to be ‘unsolved’ problem in the Indonesian Aviation Safety.
Being a pilot, there seems to be a tendency of the so called, “I must land if I see the runway”. Regardless of the conditions such as wind and weather and from records there have been several cases whereby aircraft skidded off the runway during landing and the latest being the Garuda 737-400.
Why do they took for granted, the safety issues just for the sake of making extra profits and revenue? Didn’t they realise that a crash is enough to bring down a company!
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Sasha says:
Hey guys,
I am doing a report on Adam Air/the crash and am unable to find any information on the company (except for bits on Wikipedia). Does anyone know where I can get the company info? Surprisingly, they do not have anything on their website and since they are not on the stock market, it makes things tougher.
Anyone can help?
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Robert says:
Sasha,
This site provides some info concerning Adam Air accidents:
http://www.aviationtoday.com/search/?site=all&query=adam+air
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The Juanda incident will give an insight into the probable cause which lead to the disappearance of the first air crash somewhere near Sulawesi.
‘Structural Failure’
Think about it…the answer is near.
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Sambo says:
Think this must have been Black Magic!
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Wisdom Whisper says:
Andy, thank u for your “constructive” approach to try to help. For people to be helped they need to first accept being helped. In this case, it is the Indonesian govt officials. The Indonesian public is virtually incapable of making them because of the “powers that be”. All past efforts of change have only made a difference when there is foreign government pressure.
As an example, the US FAA virtually forced the update and change of the Indonesian archaic Civil Aviation Safety Regulations in the early 90’s causing them to virtually “photocopy” the US FAA Regs after using an American consultant who was purported to be paid $500,000 dollars for coming up with the updated regulations.So, now Indonesia has excellent Regulations with enforcement by corrupt officials who mostly can’t even understand the English language regulation much less the spirit of its creation not having evolved through it.
Having said all that, there r honest people in the govt too but they tend to be considered the “wierd” ones.
Going back to the Adam Air Accident, the European Union has pressured the Indo govt to upgrade their safety enforcement but the FAA has failed to join in perhaps worrying about the effects of the sale of Boeing aircraft (especially to Lion Air?) and other “needs”. As for the officials, they became busy trying to “convince” the European Union to withdraw the ban rather than fixing their wrongdoings and stay mostly in denial.
And for Sasha: Don’t expect to know much about the company. The airlines in Indonesia work behind curtains. Most do not declare the ownership publicly nor are evaluations exposed unless under foreign govt pressure. What do u need 2 know?
That’s the reality and I hope it will get better in the future.
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Barney says:
It seems that the Adam Air crash investigation resulted in a find of ‘pilot error’. Apparently the pilots were busy trying to resolve a problem with a faulty flight inertia system which had failed 154 times in the previous 2 months. I’m sorry but that doesn’t sopund like pilot error to me so much as pilots preoccupied with trying to keep a fault ridden aeroplane in the sky. I find it interesting to make comparisons between this and the Silk Air flight 185 crash, the US air Flight 427 crash which killed all 132 aboard and the United Airlines flight 585 crash which killed all 25 on board. All of the above crashes involved Boeing 737s and the initial attempt on each was to prove pilot error. Ultimately, lengthy investigations proved that the cause lay in the design and construction of the servo unit in the PCU which controls the rudder. Malfunctions of this unit had caused a rudder ‘hard over’ to occur rendering the aeroplane uncontrollable. Boeing consistently denied this for the simple reason that if proved it would render them liable for millions of dollars in compensation…not so much to passengers families, whose compensationlimits are capped by the Geneva convention, but for families of pilots and crew members. Hundreds of reports have been filed by pilots all around the world about uncommanded rudder movements on 737s.
Highly paid lawyers fought through the high courts on Boeing’s behalf to put the blame on the pilots. Boeing also opposed changes to the design of what was obviously a faulty component due to the massive amount of cash required to implement redesign and refitting of almost 3,000 aircraft. Hundreds of millions of dollars were at stake.
Eventually ‘out of court settlements’ were made with no culpability being ascribed to Boeing.
Each of the three aeroplanes above made the same pre crash manoeuvre, flipping over and diving vertically to their doom. Not unlike what has been suggested happened with the Adam Air Flight 574 except of course that this time it was pilot error. Perhaps Boeing have found Indonesian officials easier to ‘negotiate’ with. Who knows? For the full and fascinating story of the first two crash investigations go to http://www.seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/737/response -
By the way, I have to fly with my wife and baby daughter on a 737 to Jakarta next week and I’m scared sh*tless!
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Oh, and I forgot to add that a new servo unit has been designed with recommendations from the FAA that all aircraft in service should have these changed over by November 2008. Which means that there can legally be, and most likely still are, some 737s out there still using the old ‘dangerous’ servo unit. Now I wonder which country’s airlines might still be operating those.
Comment on “Adam Air Crash”.
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As an Airline Transport Pilot in the USA with about 9000 hrs in commercial transport category aircraft, I am deeply saddened by the writings here concerning the Indonesia Government and their failure to make every effort to locate the missing 737 and fully investigate through every means possible the cause of the tragic accident.
There are firms in the US that should be brought onboard to assist regardless of the cost. We are dealing with the loss of human life, many daughters, husbands, wives and sons who needlessly perished. These losses will have an adverse affect on families and loved ones forever. They deserve better.
Is there a department of transportation or aviation that would oversee such matters? Perhaps a consultant should be brought in to make derminations as to how they might do a better job. We often complain about the politics and mechanisms that make things work here in America, but when it is all said and done, it really does work.
I would look forward to visiting Indnesia in the future regardless of the transprtation track record. It is a beautiful country with beautiful meaningful people.
What can we do here to assist n this matter?