Minister of Transportation Ignatius Jonan paid an impromptu visit (blusukan) to Indonesia AirAsia’s headquarters in Cengkareng, Tangerang, Banten today. In the wake of the QZ8501 disaster, what Jonan found at the AirAsia office upset him deeply.
“Mr. Jonan was angry at the AirAsia office. Furious,” said Hadi M Djuraid, Special Staff at the Minister of Transportation, as quoted by Detik.
What angered the Transportation Minister? Hadi said that, while he was visiting the AirAsia office, Jonan was reviewing the procedures performed before an aircraft is flown. From there he found out that AirAsia flights have been skipping one stage in the procedure.
“Ahead of departure, the pilot should have been briefed directly by the Flight Operation Officer (FOO), especially regarding the weather. But AirAsia has just been relying on the information from the BMKG (Meteorological Climatological and Geophysical Agency) website,” Hadi said.
Hadi said this was what upset Jonan. The minister told AirAsia to comply with all procedures, and, if there were any more violations, the government could give decisive action.
“If there is a rule like that, you have to obey. If you do not comply, I can revoke your permission,” Jonan said, as quoted by Hadi.
In the future, according to Hadi, AirAsia has promised to abide by this rule. “Even one of the airline’s senior pilots said it was better for those briefings to be done directly with a person,” he said
Could such a briefing had an impact on QZ8501’s fate? Previously it was revealed that the BMKG station at Surabaya’s Juanda Airport (where QZ8501 took off from) made a weather map every morning at 4:00 WIB which was then updated every 3 hours.
Since QZ8501 lost contact at 6:14 WIB, it would have been operating using the weather map created at 4:00 WIB. Since the next update wouldn’t have been created until 7:00 WIB, the pilots might have been navigating using weather data that was over 2 hours old.
The Head of Data and Information at BMKG Juanda Airport, Bambang Setiajid, confirmed that information but also said, “Keep in mind that weather information does not just come from BMKG. It could be from Singapore or Australia – in the end it’s the same information. We exchange data as well. I don’t believe that pilots would fly without bringing proper weather information,” he added.
Update: This story was edited at 19:00 WIB to clarify a statement regarding the pilots’ use of weather map data.
LATEST UPDATE: Transport Ministry says AirAsia QZ8501 was not allowed to fly route, airline’s license may be revoked
Previous coverage of AirAsia QZ8501
Three more bodies found from Air Asia QZ8501, bringing total to six, not 40
This family of 10 missed getting on AirAsia QZ8501 by a few minutes
Families of Air Asia flight QZ8501 passengers upset over lack of information
National Search and Rescue Agency says bad weather could hinder search for Air Asia QZ8501
Air Asia QZ8501 Captain had more than 20,000 flying hours under his belt
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