On 3-2-2015 the Transport Workers’ Union is calling on the federal government to suspend all AirAsia Indonesia flights in Australia in the wake of the crash of flight QZ8501.
The union has requested an urgent audit on training and aircraft maintenance at the airline, which flies in and out of Darwin and Perth.
“We need to ensure that a rapidly expanding airline like AirAsia Indonesia is not cutting corners,” TWU national secretary Tony Sheldon said.
He also said that said leaked information suggested poor pilot training and regulatory failure. AirAsia Indonesia is putting Australian lives at risk. For full report please read HERE.
Bloomberg had reported that:
the pilots of AirAsia Bhd. Flight 8501 cut power to a critical computer system that normally prevents planes from going out of control shortly before it plunged into the Java Sea, two people with knowledge of the investigation said. Airbus discourages pilots from cutting power to systems because electronics in the highly computerized aircraft are interconnected and turning off one component can affect others, John Cox, a former A320 pilot who is now a safety consultant, said in an interview. For full Bloomberg’s report please read HERE.
Yours truly would like to say Thank You to a regular reader and contributor of this blog, Warior 231, for sharing his thoughts and researches with all of us.
Backgrounds of the safety issues involving AirAsia and AirAsia X
The CEO of AirAsia, Tony Fernandez, had been quoted to have said that “I know Malaysians very well and if you put a fare low enough, they’ll risk their lives”. This is his known view about Malaysians.
“My engineers talk to my pilots about how to fly the plane more efficiently. We went from 80 landings per set of tyres to 180. We showed them how to brake on the runway, how to use the reverse thrust, how they should descend. We burn just 770 US gallons per hour of fuel. MAS, using a similar plane, burns 1100 US gallons.”, said Tony Fernandez.
The cost-cutting fanatic Fernandes also suggested that pilots should avoid using their brakes for as long as possible when landing. “Friction usually does the trick, so our brake pads and tyres last a damn sight longer than most,” he said.
Was the decision to keep going into a monsoonal storm part of the Fernandes’ vicious cost-cutting program? Was the captain facing the sack had he turned back?
Air Asia hosties are paid the pittance of $9 per hour air time and pilots are paid well below what other airlines pay. They also sign contracts ensuring they will repay Air Asia for all training costs.
Passengers have complained it takes up to a year of fighting to get refunds from cancelled flights with most simply giving up trying.
For the full Pickering Post report dated 4-1-2015 read HERE.
Please read the experiences of air travelers: “Why I will never fly AriAsia
As early as in July 2010 yours truly had brought the safety issues of AirAsia to the Parliament of Malaysian for consideration. Of course, our DCA was then obsessed with its “Tidak Apa” attitude. Please read HERE.
Two years later in December 2012, DCA discovered that AirAsia did not meet regulatory safety standard and the Malaysian DCA granted it a temporary AOC for 6 months. Under such circumstances, no aviation authorities except Malaysian DCA, would have have granted the AOC for AirAsia as safety is a serious matters in the aviation industry.
The findings of the Malaysian DCA in 2012 were as follows:
“AirAsia’s flight operations procedures and practices including flawed communications between flight operations and pilots, an outdated manual and flight operations not in keeping with the manual, HERE.
In 2007 when Fly Asian Express Sdn Bhd (FAX) changed its name to AirAsia X Sdn Bhd, the DCA should not have granted it the AOC to fly international flight because it has a proven record of poor or no maintenance of aircraft. In the case of FAKS/AirAsia X, it took over from MAS 14 aircraft, which were in good conditions and within a short span of several months 7 aircraft were grounded due to un-airworthiness and one of them being cannibalised for spare parts. Please read HERE & HERE.
If our DCA had acted professionally in 2007 and/or in 2012 by not granting the so-called temporary AOC, may be AirAsia would have learnt from that lesson and AirAsia as a group would have treated aviation safety and maintenance as its priority instead of profits at all costs. Then AirAsia would not have allowed the unauthorised QZ8501 to operate and also ensure that its pilots are properly trained.
