Indonesia cites faulty component, crew response in AirAsia crash

– World news selected by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community

PHUKET: Indonesian investigators said on Tuesday a chronically faulty component and the crew’s attempt to fix the problem were among the factors that contributed to the crash of an AirAsia passenger jet last year, killing all 162 aboard.

The plane’s flight control computer had a cracked solder joint that malfunctioned repeatedly, including four times during the flight, and 23 times the previous year.

“Subsequent flight crew action resulted in inability to control the aircraft causing the aircraft to depart from the normal flight envelope and enter a prolonged stall condition that was beyond the capability of the flight crew to recover,” the national transport safety committee said in a statement.

The Airbus A320 aircraft crashed less than halfway into a two-hour flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore on Dec. 28 last year.

— Phuket Gazette Editors