Airbus A320 crash investigation – A fault with the rudder control system
The final report from Indonesia’s national transport safety agency said an existing fault in the system that controlled the Airbus A320-200’s rudder had set off a chain of events that caused the crash.
AirAsia Flight 8501 was en route to Singapore from the Indonesian city of Surabaya on December 28 a year ago when it crashed.
In fact, according to the Airbus A320’s aircraft maintenance records, these warnings had been repeated 23 times throughout a year ago, before the accident happened – 9 of them during December.
Investigators believe that when the pilots received the fourth warning, they tried to restart the system by resetting a circuit breaker.
Pilots onboard the plane attempted to handle a series of electronic warning messages, as the plane ended up rolling sharply a few times, then climbed rapidly and stalled prior to crashing into the Java Sea.
According to Alastair Jamieson of NBCNews.com, Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee found that the main flight control computer had a cracked joint that resulted in the system malfunctioning repeatedly.
Indonesian air crash investigators have attributed the downing of an Air Asia jet almost a year ago, to a faulty component as well as the crew’s actions in resolving the eventual deadly crash.
Bad weather did not play a role.
The reset disengaged the plane’s autopilot, auto-thrust and fly-by-wire flight control system and as a result several flight safeguards were compromised.
As per recording from the two black boxes and a cockpit recording, the pilot instructed the co-pilot to “pull down”, sending the plane soaring up to 38,000 feet.
AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes tweeted yesterday that a lot can be learned by AirAsia, the manufacturer and the aviation industry from this tragic incident.
The RTL controls the rudder, a part of the aircraft’s tail.
The report is not created to attribute blame but to make recommendations to avoid future accidents. “We are now carefully studying its content”, a spokesman told Reuters.
People states that initial reports right after the crash reported stormy weather may have led to the crash.
Its handling of the high-profile investigation may be scrutinised by regulators in the European Union, where a majority of its airlines are banned from flying due to concerns about safety regulation.