Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 was a scheduled international passenger flight operated by Indonesia AirAsia from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. On 28 December 2014, the Airbus A320 flying the route crashed into the Java Sea, killing all 162 of the people on board. When search operations ended in March 2015, only 116 bodies had been recovered. As of 2026, this is the only fatal accident involving AirAsia and its affiliates.
In December 2015, the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT or NTSC) released a report concluding that a non-critical malfunction in the rudder control system prompted the captain to perform a non-standard reset of the on-board flight control computers. Control of the aircraft was subsequently lost, resulting in a stall and uncontrolled descent into the sea. Miscommunication between the two pilots was cited as a contributing factor.
Accident
Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 was a scheduled flight from Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, to Singapore on Sunday, 28 December 2014. It was scheduled to depart Juanda International Airport at 05:20 Western Indonesian Time (WIB, UTC+7) and arrive at Singapore Changi Airport at 08:30 Singapore Standard Time (SST, UTC+8). The aircraft took off at 05:35 WIB and reached its cruising altitude at flight level (FL) 320 at 9,800 metres (32,000 ft) fourteen minutes later. It joined air route M635, heading north-west out over the western Java Sea. The plane was in contact with Jakarta air traffic control (ATC).
The flight was normal until 06:00 when an electronic centralised aircraft monitor (ECAM) memo was displayed, along with a master caution light, to indicate a fault with the rudder limiter system. Captain Iriyanto read the actions for fixing this failure, and rebooted the aircraft's two Flight Augmentation Computers (FACs). The same fault recurred at 06:09, and the captain fixed it in the same way.
At 06:11, the pilots turned fifteen degrees to the left to avoid inclement weather, and contacted Jakarta ATC to request a climb to FL 380 at 12,000 metres (38,000 ft) for the same reason. The controller could not give immediate permission for this due to other aircraft in the vicinity, and instructed them to wait.
While the pilots were waiting for permission to climb, the rudder limiter problem occurred for a third time, and for the third time the captain reset the FAC computers. When the memo displayed for the fourth time, Captain Iriyanto decided to reset the FAC circuit breakers (CB). He had previously seen this action being performed by a ground engineer, and believed that it was acceptable to do so in flight.
The FAC circuit breakers were reset at 06:16:45, with immediate consequences, as this action not only reset the FAC computers but also disconnected the autopilot and autothrottle, and the flight control law changed from Normal to Alternate. It allowed the aircraft to roll to the left, and by the time First Officer Plesel reacted to this it was banked at 54 degrees.
First Officer Plesel, possibly spatially disoriented due to the roll sensation, over-corrected twice: first by making a sharp right bank input and then a sharp left bank input. After that, at 06:17, Plesel made a nose-up input on his side-stick, causing the aircraft to enter a steep climb at a 24-degree nose-up pitch. The captain gave a confusing direction to "pull down", which "bears an internal contradiction as 'pull' suggests up, while 'down' means down." In just 54 seconds, the aircraft climbed from 32,000 feet to 38,500 ft (11,700 m), exceeding a climb rate of 10,000 ft/min (50 m/s). It then entered a stall, at around 06:17:40, descending at a rate of up to 20,000 ft/min (100 m/s). The aircraft also began a turn to the left, forming at least one complete circle before disappearing from radar at 06:18:44. At 06:20:35, the flight data recorder stopped recording. The CVR stopped recording one second later, at 06:20:36. The aircraft crashed into the Java Sea and was destroyed. All 162 people on board were killed instantly upon impact.
Its last recorded position was over the Java Sea, Karimata Strait between the islands of Belitung and Kalimantan (3°22′15″S 109°41′28″E / 3.3708°S 109.6911°E). The aircraft crashed in the Java Sea, Karimata Strait between the islands of Belitung and Borneo (3°37′23″S 109°42′43″E / 3.623°S 109.712°E). The cockpit voice recorder captured multiple warnings, including a stall warning, sounding in the cockpit during the final minutes of the flight. No distress signal was sent from the aircraft. Search and rescue (SAR) operations were activated by the Indonesia National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) from the Pangkal Pinang office.
Aircraft
The aircraft was an Airbus A320-216, with serial number 3648, registered as PK-AXC. It first flew on 25 September 2008, and was delivered to AirAsia on 15 October 2008. The aircraft was six years old and had accumulated approximately 23,039 airframe hours and around 13,610 takeoff and landing cycles. It had undergone its most recent scheduled maintenance on 16 November 2014. The aircraft was powered by two CFM International CFM56-5B6/3 engines and was configured to carry 180 passengers.
Victims
AirAsia released details of the 155 passengers, which included 137 adults, 17 children, and one infant. The crew consisted of two pilots, four flight attendants and an engineer.
The passengers on board were mostly Indonesian with 3 passengers from South Korea and one each from Malaysia, Singapore, and the United Kingdom.
The pilots on board the flight were:
- Captain Iriyanto, age 53, an Indonesian national, had a total of 20,537 flying hours, of which 4,687 hours were on the Airbus A320. The captain began his career with the Indonesian Air Force, graduating from pilot school in 1983 and previously flying fighter jet aircraft. He took early retirement from the air force in the mid-1990s to join Merpati Nusantara Airlines, and later worked for Adam Air and Sriwijaya Air before joining Indonesia AirAsia. He had 6,100 flying hours with Indonesia AirAsia.
- First Officer Rémi Emmanuel Plesel, age 46, a French national, had a total of 2,247 flying hours, including 1,367 hours on the Airbus A320. He was originally from Le Marigot, Martinique, and had studied and worked as an engineer in Paris. At 44, he left his previous job to fulfill a childhood dream of becoming a pilot. Indonesia AirAsia was the first airline he had worked for. He was living in Indonesia.
Forty-one people who were on board the AirAsia flight were members of a single church congregation: the Gereja Mawar Sharon in Surabaya. Most were families with young children travelling to Singapore for a new year's holiday.
One of the passengers was Florentina Maria Widodo, a 26-year-old Biology and Project Work teacher at Hwa Chong Institution in Singapore. In her memory, the school later established the Florentina Maria Widodo Award, which recognises beginning or young teachers who demonstrate dedication to inspiring and developing their students.
The bodies began to be returned to their families on 1 January 2015. At that time, the East Java Regional Police Department's Disaster Victim Identification commissioner stated that the victims were identified by the means of post mortem results, thumb prints, and their personal belongings.
AirAsia offered US$32,000 or Rp300 million to each of the grieving family members of the victims of the accident as initial compensation from an overall part of compensation. David Thejakusuma, who had 7 family members on the flight, received the amount for each family member he lost.
On 16 March 2015, Monash University posthumously awarded a Bachelor of Commerce to one of the crash victims, Kevin Alexander Sujipto. Professor Colm Kearney, Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics, presented it to a member of his family. A memorial service was held alongside the presentation of the award, and was attended by the Consul General of Indonesia for Victoria and Tasmania, Dewi Savitri Wahab, 40 of the deceased's friends and representatives from the Indonesian Student Association in Australia (PPIA) Monash University branch.
On 28 December 2015, the first anniversary of the crash, a private prayer service was held in a room in the Mahameru Building of the East Java Regional Police, Surabaya, and was attended by relatives of the victims, as well as by the Head Chief of the Search and Rescue Agency, Henry Bambang Soelistyo. Representatives of the family members asked the National Transportation Safety Committee to ensure the safety of air travel in Indonesia. The Indonesian Government was also asked by the family members to ratify the Montreal Convention, which later occurred on 19 May 2017.
Search and recovery
Shortly after the aircraft was confirmed to be missing, unconfirmed reports stated that wreckage had been found off the island of Belitung in Indonesia. Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) deployed seven ships and two helicopters to search the shores of Belitung and Kalimantan. The Indonesian Navy and the provincial Indonesian National Police Air and Water Unit each sent out search and rescue teams. In addition, an Indonesian Air Force Boeing 737 reconnaissance aircraft was dispatched to the last known location of the airliner.
The Indonesian Navy dispatched four ships by the end of the first search day and the Air Force deployed aircraft including a CASA/IPTN CN-235. The Indonesian Army deployed ground troops to search the shores and mountains of adjacent islands. Local fishermen also participated in the search.
Search and rescue operations were under the guidance of the Civil Aviation Authority of Indonesia. The search was suspended at 7:45 pm local time on 28 December due to darkness and bad weather, to be resumed in daylight. An operations center to coordinate search efforts was set up in Pangkal Pinang. The search area was a 270-nautical-mile (500 km) radius near Belitung Island.
Search and rescue operations quickly became an international effort. By 30 December naval and air units from Singapore, Malaysia and Australia had joined Indonesian authorities in patrolling designated search areas. Singapore's Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC) deployed three C-130 Hercules aircraft to aid in the search and rescue operation. RSS Supreme, RSS Valour, RSS Persistence, and MV Swift Rescue subsequently took part in the search and rescue after Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency accepted the offer of help from the Republic of Singapore Navy. Singapore's Ministry of Transport provided specialist teams from the Air Accident and Investigation Bureau and underwater locator equipment. The Malaysian government set up a rescue coordination centre at Subang and deployed three military vessels and three aircraft, including a C-130, to assist in search and rescue operations. Australia deployed a P-3 Orion to assist in the search and rescue operation. Elements of the United States Navy joined the search effort; USS Sampson arrived on station late on 30 December, and USS Fort Worth on 3 January.
More than ninety vessels and aircraft from Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, South Korea, Japan, China, the United States, and Russia participated in the search. This fleet included three ships with underwater detectors and two fuel tankers seconded to ensure efficient operation of the vessels in the search area. On 2 January the Indonesian Ministry of Transport reported that two other Indonesian tender vessels had been fitted with equipment that could detect acoustic signals from the flight recorder ("black box") beacons and airframe metal, as well as multibeam side scan sonar.
By 5 January 31 bodies had been recovered with the aid of the Russian and the US search teams.
Divers entered the main section of the fuselage underwater and discovered six bodies on 24 January. The official search for bodies ended on 17 March, after 116 bodies had been recovered. 46 bodies remained unaccounted for.
Wreckage
On the day of the disappearance, a fisherman observed "a lot of debris, small and large, near Pulau Tujuh. [...] It looked like the AirAsia colours." Another fisherman reported that, while moored on Sunday at Pulau Senggora, south of the town of Pangkalan Bun in Central Kalimantan, "Around 7 am, I heard a loud booming sound. Soon afterwards, there was haze that usually happened only during the dry season. [...] Before the exploding sound, my friends saw a plane from above Pulau Senggaro heading towards the sea. The plane was said to be flying relatively low, but then disappeared."