Flight QZ8501 "ascended too quickly" before crashing into the Java Sea

According to radar data, the Airbus A320-200 was climbing at a rate of about 1,828m/minute - very unusual for a commercial aircraft.

AP quoted Indonesia's Transport Minister on January 20 as saying that the AirAsia plane QZ8501 that crashed last month with 162 people on board "ascended at an unusually high speed, then plunged and suddenly disappeared from radar."

The tail of flight QZ8501 was salvaged from the Java Sea on January 10 (Photo: Reuters)

Speaking at a parliamentary hearing, Indonesian Transport Minister Ignasius Jonan said radar data showed the AirAsia Airbus A320-200 was climbing at a rate of about 1,828 meters per minute before it disappeared from radar on December 28.

"It's unusual to climb at such a high speed. This is very rare for commercial aircraft, which usually only climb at 300-600m/minute," said Mr. Johan. "Such a rapid climb can only be done by a fighter jet."

Mr. Johan also said that the plane then dived very quickly and disappeared from radar. However, Mr. Jonan did not say what caused the plane to increase altitude so abnormally quickly.

In the pilot's last communication with air traffic control, the pilot of Flight QZ8501 requested to increase altitude from about 9,700m to more than 11,000m to avoid dark clouds. However, this request was denied because at that time, the traffic density was quite dense in this area. 4 minutes later, the plane disappeared from the radar screen and no distress signal was recorded.

According to experts, climbing too quickly can cause a plane to become aerodynamically unstable. In 2009, an Air France Airbus A330 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in bad weather while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Investigators later determined that data from the jet's "black box" showed it had climbed and then become unstable, and the pilots were unable to correct the situation.

However, Airbus spokesman Justin Dubon said it was too early to comment on the similarities between the two accidents.

So far, search and rescue teams have located nine large pieces of debris, including the fuselage and tail of the AirAsia jet at the bottom of the Java Sea. The plane's two black boxes, the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, have been recovered and are being analyzed.

"So far, we have downloaded and transcribed about half of the data in the cockpit voice recorder," said Nurcahyo Utomo, an investigator with Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee. "It's too early to draw any conclusions because we don't know what happened in the other half of the data."

Mr. Utomo also said that there were no signs of terrorism on the plane and there were no other voices in the cockpit other than the captain and co-pilot.

So far, search and rescue teams have only recovered 53 bodies out of the 162 people on board the plane. Bad weather and strong undercurrents have repeatedly prevented divers from reaching the main body of the plane, which is located at a depth of about 30 meters in the Java Sea./.

According to VOV