QZ8501: Caught in a severe thunderstorm

Indonesia AirAsia flight QZ8501 climbed at least five times its capability before it stalled and plummeted into the Java Sea killing all 162 aboard.

Yesterday, Indonesia’s Transport Minister Ignasius Jonan citing radar tapes, told media that, "the A320 suddenly went up at a speed (6000ft/minute) above the normal limit that it was able to climb to. Then it stalled."

According to an A320 check captain the plane, at that altitude, “is only capable of climbing at 1000ft a minute."

“The crew could only have been caught in a massive updraft associated with a severe thunderstorm.”

“the question is how on earth did they find themselves in the middle of a severe thunderstorm,” said the check captain.

Suggested Read: The danger of flying in thunderstorms

The check captain suggests that the crew may have misread their weather radar or the radar itself may have been faulty.

On December 30 AirlineRatings.com broke the story of the A320s wild ride revealing the plane was climbing through 36,300ft but its forward speed had decayed by 200km/hr to the point where it couldn’t sustain flight.

Air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane just four minutes after its crew requested a deviation of their flight route to avoid storms.
Flight QZ8501 was flying between Surabaya and Singapore with 162 passengers and crew on Sunday December 28 when it disappeared off radar 42 minutes into the flight.

The minister’s comments came after Indonesian investigators said they were focusing on the possibility of human error – or problems with the plane’s systems - causing the crash, following an initial analysis of the cockpit voice recorder.

"We didn’t hear any other person, no explosion," investigator Nurcahyo Utomo told media.

As well as the cockpit voice recorder, crash investigators are also examining information from in the flight data recorder. A preliminary report will be released on January 28