AirAsia Found to Have Crashed on Rudder Fault, Crew
- Crack in soldering caused rudder system to fail, probe finds
- Doomed flight crashed last year, killing all 162 aboard
Workers load the tail of AirAsia flight 8501 onto a truck at Kumai sea port
Photographer Yudha Manx/AFP/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
AirAsia Flight 8501’s pilots effectively wrestled each other at the controls as they sought to fight off an electronics-system failure, dooming the plane and the lives of all 162 people on board last year, Indonesian crash investigators found.
A crack in the soldering of the rudder system caused the plane to exit autopilot, then start rolling sideways and upward, according to a report released on Tuesday by Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee. The two pilots then tried to control the aircraft in opposing ways, leading the plane to stall.