In past accidents, recovering large pieces of the plane wreckage has helped investigators understand what went wrong by determining at what impact and angle the plane hit the water, experts say. - File pic
After an agonizing three-day search, Indonesian authorities spotted bodies and debris they have confirmed came from the missing AirAsia plane. The Tuesday announcement ends one phase of the investigation and mystery even as it begins another. So now that they've found the disappeared plane's debris, what happens next?
The first priority, aviation experts say, will be the recovery of bodies; then the recovery of the flight recorders. Third may be recovering the plane itself, which would take specialized equipment, such as salvage ships.
In past accidents, recovering large pieces of the plane wreckage has helped investigators understand what went wrong by determining at what impact and angle the plane hit the water, experts say.
Indonesia authorities said divers and sonar-equipped ships are headed to the site. The depth of waters where the debris was found appears relatively shallow — between 80 and 100 feet, which will make finding the main wreckage much easier, experts say.
By comparison, searchers for the Air France Flight 447 were dealing with depths of 12,500 feet -- roughly the same as the Titanic. For that reason, it took them two years to find the wreckage, even though they found bodies and floating debris within days.
Q: When can we expect the black box?
A: Given the shallow depth, experts say authorities will find the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder within two or three days. At those depths, divers can be used along with receivers to listen for the recorders' acoustic transmitter that sends out a unique clicking sound.
It will likely take another two or three days to have the recordings analyzed. Only a handful of countries have the technology to do it, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Britain and France, said former accident investigator John Cox.
"In those boxes will be story of what brought down the AirAsia flight," said Cox, a former captain for US Airways and now chief executive of the Washington-based consulting firm Safety Operating Systems.
Another advantage investigators hold is that the Karimata Straits where the AirAsia jet crashed are very well studied by oceanographers, said David Gallo, who co-led the expedition that found Air France 447. "It's an important shipping lane and important for water circulation, which means experts will be very familiar with its currents and tides flow," he said. "My guess is we'll know what happened within a week."
Q: What can we tell from what's been found so far?
A: One major question to be answered in coming days is whether the plane broke up in flight or hit the water first and broke up on impact.
"It's important to know because that tells you whether it was a force like a storm that destroyed the airplane in air or if it was a matter of the pilots losing control and never able to recover from it," said Australia-based aviation security expert Desmond Ross.
The fact that some of the bodies recovered so far were partially nude argues for the plane breaking mid-air, Ross said. "That's fairly typical of a long fall through the air, where the clothes are pulled away in the slipstream."
On the other hand, the fact that search crews have seen what looks like a shadow in the shape of a plane could point to the wreckage being largely intact when it hit the water.
- Source: The Washington Post
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