Airbus A320 Went Down In The Java Sea December 28th Last Year

Indonesian investigators have released their final report stemming from an accident which occurred December 28th, 2014 in which an AirAsia Indonesia Airbus A320 went down in the Java Sea, resulting in the fatal injury of all 162 passengers and crew.

According to the report from Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee, the airplane suffered from an ongoing problem with the rudder system. Reuters reports that in a news conference releasing the report Tuesday, (NTSC) investigator Nurcahyo Utomo said that the rudder control system had cracked soldering that had malfunctioned as many as 23 times over the year prior to the accident flight, and four times during the accident flight. According to the NTSC report, the flight recorders recovered from the airplane indicated that the crew had tried to shut off power to the rudder control system by resetting a circuit breaker which is not standard procedure during the flight.

Resetting the circuit breaker would have caused the autopilot to disengage, and leave the crew in full manual control of the airplane. In a statement the NTSC said "Subsequent flight crew action resulted in inability to control the aircraft."

The plane entered a stall and began to descend, eventually reaching a descent rate of 20,000 FPM. It took about five minutes from the time the plane entered the stall until it impacted the water, according to the report.

Reuters reports that some relatives of those aboard the plane have initiated legal actions against both AirAsia Indonesia and Airbus. The airline said that it has upgraded its pilot training and beefed up its safety standards. The carrier said that "several factors" led to the accident.

Reports from the NTSC are not intended to affix blame, and are not admissible as evidence in court. It could, however, hold some influence in legal proceedings, and cause friction between the planemaker and its best customer in Asia, according to Reuters.

Airbus told Reuters that it had only just received the final report, and was still studying its content.

(Image from NTSC report)

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