Pings: Signs of black boxes heard near where AirAsia jet crashed

Three Indonesian ships detected the signals from the two missing black boxes not far from where the plane’s tail section was recovered. In addition, sonar on Sunday detected a large object in the same vicinity as the pings. Several other large objects have been spotted in the search area by sonar, but they have not yet been explored underwater. The boxes may have detached from the tail when the plane plummeted into the sea Dec. 28, killing all 162 people on board. So far, only 48 bodies have been recovered.

If that is true, then maybe many bodies are still there.

Suryadi Bambang Supriyadi, head of Indonesia’s Search and Rescue Agency, on a large object he hopes is the main section of the Airbus A320

It is too early to say whether the Airbus A320 crashed into the Java Sea due to pilot error, mechanical problems, freak weather or—as most often happens in aviation disasters—a combination of factors. But its apparently uncontrolled plunge, coming after a series of other fatal crashes blamed at least in part on loss of control, has refocused attention on whether pilot training programs need to improve. Critics say pilots don’t get enough training on how to react when an airliner stalls or loses lift, and that changes in guidance about best practices have been slow. Though rare, loss of pilot control ranks as the single biggest cause of air travel deaths. Two crashes in particular forced the issue—the 2009 losses of an Air France flight from Rio De Janeiro to Paris, and a Colgan Air turboprop near Buffalo, New York. In both, confused pilots ignored or countermanded warnings of an impending stall, a condition where a plane loses lift because the air flow over its wings is too slow.

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