A Technical and Procedural Glitch
THE warning sounds began just 26 minutes after AirAsia flight QZ8501 took off from Surabaya's Juanda International Airport, bound for Singapore. The dings indicated the plane's rudder travel limiter (RTL) was malfunctioning.
Nurcahyo Utomo, a National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) senior investigator, said after the fourth warning, the plane's's data recorder showed the Flight Augmentation Computers (FAC) circuit breakers were pulled out, disabling the two FACs as well as the auto-pilot and auto-thrust settings. When that happened, the plane was flying at an altitude of 32,000 feet, high above the Karimata Strait.
December 8, 2015
THE warning sounds began just 26 minutes after AirAsia flight QZ8501 took off from Surabaya's Juanda International Airport, bound for Singapore. The dings indicated the plane's rudder travel limiter (RTL) was malfunctioning.
Nurcahyo Utomo, a National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) senior investigator, said after the fourth warning, the plane's's data recorder showed the Flight Augmentation Computers (FAC) circuit breakers were pulled out, dis
...