Official: AirAsia QZ8501 Jet Climbed Steeply and Stalled

Tuesday, January 20, 2015 at 11:56 PM ET

Verified

** AirAsia Airbus A320-200 (PK-AXC), the aircraft
involved in the crash, in April 2014. Credit: Oka
Sudiatmika (Wikimedia Commons)/CC-BY-SA 3.0**

Key Takeaways:

Radar data suggests the AirAsia A320 crashed due to an aerodynamic stall following an unusually steep climb, exceeding 6,000 feet per minute.
The aircraft was flying near large storms, and pilots had requested to climb to a higher altitude but were denied permission due to conflicting air traffic.
The plane disappeared from radar four minutes after the denial, killing all 162 people on board without a distress signal.

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An analysis of radar data from the AirAsia Airbus A320 that crashed near Indonesia late last month points to a steep climb and aerodynamic stall that caused the jetliner to go out of control and plummet into the Java Sea, a government official said.

Indonesian Transportation Secretary Ignasius Jonan said at a government hearing that the A320 climbed at more than 6,000 feet per minute. Citing radar data, he said the airplane, during its last minutes aloft, “went up faster than normal … then it stalled.”