THE PILOT of AirAsia Flight 8501 may have made a successful “Sully Sullenberger” style emergency touchdown in the Java Sea — but high waves sank the aircraft before passengers could escape, experts theorized Thursday.
The airplane — which crashed in the waters off Indonesia Sunday — failed to emit an emergency transmission signal, which indicates there was a controlled touchdown on the water instead of a catastrophic crash, analysts told Agence France-Presse.
“The emergency locator transmitter would work on impact, be that land, sea or the sides of a mountain, and my analysis is it didn’t work because there was no major impact during landing,” said Dudi Sudibyo, a senior editor at the aviation magazine Angkasa.
“The pilot managed to land it on the sea’s surface.”
An emergency exit door and inflatable slide were among the debris scattered about 100 miles off the coast of Borneo, which could mean passengers tried to escape after landing.
Former Indonesian Transport Minister Jusman Syafii Djamal surmised that the travelers were waiting for a flight attendant to inflate the raft when a powerful wave hit the plane.
“High waves may have hit the plane, the nose, and sunk the plane,” he said.
Investigators are still looking into the theory that the Airbus A320-200 stalled after climbing too steeply to avoid bad weather.
As of Thursday, the bodies of nine of the 162 aboard were recovered from the wreckage — and all were largely intact, fitting the theory that the plane didn’t explode.
“The conclusions I have come to so far are that the plane did not blow up midair, and it did not suffer an impact when it hit a surface, because if it did so, the bodies would not be intact,” Chappy Hakim, a former air force commander, told AFP.
A team of about 50 divers are on standby to investigate a large shadow that aerial searchers spotted in the sea — but bad weather has stalled the search.
The shadow is believed to be the jet’s fuselage, but officials wouldn’t confirm it yet.
“I am hoping that the latest information is correct and the aircraft has been found,” AirAsia chief Tony Fernandes said Thursday. “Please all hope together.”
Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger is known for setting a USAir jet down on the surface of the Hudson River in 2009, saving all 155 people aboard.(Danika Fears – New York Post)
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