Ordinarily one wouldn’t think that news of wreckage and multiple bodies being pulled from the sea could be classified as “good.”
But given what we already very strongly suspected—which was that AirAsia Flight QZ8501 had crashed, and that the likelihood of survivors was very poor—and given the continued unknown whereabouts of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the news that the wreckage of QZ8501 has been found and that 40 bodies have been recovered so far can be considered “good” in the relative sense, despite its horrific nature.
There was always more hope of finding this plane than of locating Flight 370. We didn’t know much about QZ8591, but at least we knew that it had encountered bad weather, and that it had probably gone down suddenly in waters that were less than 150 feet deep. Had it not been for the mystery of Flight 370, it would have assumed that QZ8501 would have been found in due time. That is what has happened, and there is every reason to suppose that the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder will be recovered and we will learn the most likely cause of the disaster.
The plane was found about six miles from where it lost radio contact with the ground, and there are reports that a plane-shaped “shadow” can be seen under the water. In addition:
The aircraft’s last request – to climb higher to avoid a storm – was turned down…Geoffrey Thomas, editor of AirlineRatings.com, told Sky News: “We have a radar plot which shows the plane actually climbing through 36,300ft – it wasn’t given permission to do that.”It also shows that its speed had decayed by 134mph and dropped dramatically to a level where it couldn’t sustain flight.”
Officials have not yet spoken of survivors, and are prioritizing retrieving as many of the passengers as possible:
RIP to all the victims, and prayers for their grieving families and friends.
[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]
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