Debarshi Preetom Das

AirAsia 8501 Debarshi Preetom Das

December 28, 2014. AirAsia flight 8501 vanished from the ATC radar without any distress message. The only thing the controller noticed was that the airplane initially climbed and then nearly dropped from the sky. The investigation began to find the cause of the tragedy. National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) of Indonesia published their final report in December 2015, one year later. Many factors came to light after the report was published. Maintenance issues with the airplane, piloting techniques, loss of situation awareness and much more. Not just that, apparently it became clear that the situation in the cockpit was much like the situation on-board Air France flight 447 that crashed into Atlantic some five-and-half years ago in 2009. The maintenance issues with the AirAsia airplane was thoroughly checked during the investigation. Indeed, it did appear that the faulty maintenance had caused the crash. But, the full story doesn't suggest that maintenance had directly anything to do with the crash. Nevertheless, maintenance was surely a factor in the tragedy. And NTSC put it in the "Contributory Causes" list. This book looks into the system and maintenance aspects of an Airbus A320 airplane (same model of the airplane that crashed). Also, maintenance aspects pertaining to the accident airplane will also be discussed based on NTSC report. And then, this book will try to summarize why and how the maintenance team probably never realized the underlying issues with that plane.