AirAsia QZ8501 Black Box Recordings Reveal Human Error

Investigators have said that the black box recordings reveal that terrorism was not a factor in the AirAsia crash.

Half of the black box has been transcribed so far. “We didn’t hear any voice of other persons other than the pilots,” said one of the investigators. “We didn’t hear any sounds of gunfire or explosions. For the time being, based on that, we can eliminate the possibility of terrorism.”

Investigator Mr Hananto also eliminates the possibility of any explosions. He said “From the [flight data recordings] so far, it’s unlikely there was an explosion …If there was, we would definitely know because certain parameters would show it. There are something like 1,200 parameters.”

Abc.net.au reports:

The final minutes of the AirAsia flight were full of “sounds of machines and sounds of warnings” that must be filtered out to get a complete transcript of what was said in the cockpit, said Mr Hananto, who has been an air safety investigator since 2009.

The first half of the two-hour long cockpit voice recording has been transcribed. That includes audio from the previous flight and the beginning of Flight QZ8501, which crashed around 40 minutes after takeoff.

The team, which is working with French, Singaporean and Chinese air safety investigators, hopes to finish transcribing the recording this week, Mr Hananto said.

Analysis of the flight data recorder would take longer because investigators were examining all 72 previous flights flown by the aircraft.

Investigators hope to finish a preliminary report on the crash early next week. The full report could take up to a year, but will not include the entire cockpit voice transcript.

“In Indonesia it remains undisclosed,” said Tatang Kurniadi, chief of the NTSC.

“Just some important highlights will be included in the report.”

We will keep you updated with this story as it progresses and the remainder of the AirAsia black box has been transcribed.