Asia's
vastness, its many overwater flights and less than 100 percent radar coverage
make aviation there difficult, Heinrich Grossbongardt tells DW. He is certain
wreckage from AirAsia flight QZ8501 will be found soon.
Deutsche Welle, 28 Dec 2014
DW: How
likely is it that bad weather alone can cause a passenger plane to go off the
radar?
Heinrich
Grossbongardt: Weather can be a contributing factor. In all weather-related
accidents we have seen in the last years, weather was one factor, but there
have always been many others as well.
What are
some of those other factors that may have played a role in this case?
It's pure
speculation at the moment, but it can be a combination of weather plus some
technical issues; or weather plus some - to put it carefully - wrong decisions
made by the crew. Right now anything is possible.
In the next
few hours, will see communication between the aircraft and air traffic control
being released, we will certainly see radar data being released and that might
give a first indication as to what actually happened.
Considering
flight MH370, which went missing last March in a similar area, one question
that arises is are regulations different in Asia to the rest of the world? Is
it a particularly difficult spot for aviation?
 |
| AirAsia flight QZ8501 went off air traffic control radar at around 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, December 28, 2014 |
In Asia, we
certainly have much wider areas where air traffic control is limited by the
factor that there are overwater flights. If an aircraft is losing altitude, for
example, at a certain point, it will become invisible for the air traffic
control, simply for physical reasons - it disappears behind the horizon.
In the
Western world - in Europe, or in the US - we have next to 100 percent radar
coverage all over the region. So you won't find any spots where an aircraft is
not visible to air traffic control radar. That is different in Asia, just
because of the vastness of the region and the relatively long overwater
flights, even on short-distance flights.
Weren't
there any lesions that were learned from flight MH370, especially in that
region, that may have been applied to aviation?
The thing
which has been learned by Malaysia Airlines is that everybody is working on
implementing a solution which allows aircraft tracking with the help of
satellites. But in the aviation world, the Malaysia Airlines incident just
happened yesterday, so to speak. Because finding a solution and implementing a
solution and making sure it really works is a matter of at least two or three
years. And we are just a couple of months behind Malaysian Airlines.
AirAsia
flight QZ8501 went off the radar at around 2220 UTC on Saturday. Is there any likelihood
any survivors will be found?
Unfortunately,
when an aircraft goes missing over water, the likelihood that someone survives
the crash is only very slim.
Do you
think the position of wreckage of this aircraft will be located more easily
than MH370?
 |
| Aviation expert Heinrich Grossbongardt |
Definitely.
I think that is something which is completely different. This is, for an example
an A320, which is a short-range aircraft. It doesn't have the vast range of the
A330 of thousands and thousands of kilometers. This was only a short-haul
flight so the aircraft would have limited amount of fuel.
And in the
case of MH370, what made it so difficult and which was unprecedented, is that
someone made the aircraft go off the radar by switching off certain systems. At
the moment, we don't have any indication that this is a similar situation.
The weather
was bad, this might be a contributing factor and I am pretty sure that in the
next few days, we will find at least bits of the wreckage.
Aviation
expert Heinrich Grossbongardt is the managing director of Expairtise
Communications in Hamburg, Germany.
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