Two Flights Go Missing, but Their Stories Are Not the Same
亞航與馬航失聯(lián)航班對(duì)比:小同大異
Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501, an Airbus A320 airliner carrying 162 people, disappeared from radar screens early Sunday, about 40 minutes after leaving the Indonesian city of Surabaya en route to Singapore. A full day of searching the relatively shallow waters off the coast of Borneo has so far yielded no sign of the aircraft, raising a familiar mix of uncertainty and grief just nine months after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared shortly after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur. Though Flight 8501 disappeared in a similar part of the world, it involves a different airline and a different type of aircraft.
周日早上,印度尼西亞亞洲航空(Indonesia AirAsia)8501航班在從印度泗水出發(fā)約40分鐘后,從雷達(dá)屏幕上消失。這架載有162人的空客A320飛機(jī)當(dāng)時(shí)正在飛往新加坡的途中。在婆羅洲附近相對(duì)較淺水域搜尋了整整一天之后,迄今為止仍然沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)這架飛機(jī)的任何跡象,這件事引發(fā)了一種交織著不確定性和悲傷的感受,讓人不禁聯(lián)想起九個(gè)月前,馬來西亞航空(Malaysia Airlines)370航班從吉隆坡起飛之后不久失聯(lián)的情形。盡管兩架航班失聯(lián)的區(qū)域相似,但涉及的航線和機(jī)型并不相同。
Here are some basic details about what is known about the two disappearances.
以下是關(guān)于這兩起失聯(lián)事件的一些已知的基本細(xì)節(jié)。
Unlike Malaysia Airlines, a financially struggling, state-controlled carrier, AirAsia, with headquarters near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is a rapidly growing, low-cost airline with several affiliates — including Indonesia AirAsia — operating across Southeast Asia. Its fleet of 80 planes is relatively young, with an average age of less than five years.
與在財(cái)務(wù)上舉步維艱的、由政府控制的馬來西亞航空公司不同,總部位于馬拉西亞吉隆坡附近的亞洲航空公司是一家快速增長的低成本航空公司,在東南亞各地運(yùn)營著多家子公司,其中就包括印度尼西亞亞洲航空公司。它擁有的80架飛機(jī)相對(duì)較新,平均服役時(shí)間不到五年。
The aircraft that disappeared Sunday was a single-aisle Airbus A320-200 that was built in 2008. AirAsia is one of the world’s largest operators of Airbus A320 series jets. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was a Boeing 777-200, a wide-body jet that was built in 2002.
周日失聯(lián)的飛機(jī)型號(hào)為空客A320-200,是一架生產(chǎn)于2008年的窄體飛機(jī)。亞航擁有的空客A320系列客機(jī)的數(shù)量在全世界的航空公司中名列前茅。馬來西亞航空公司370客機(jī)的型號(hào)為波音777-200,是一架生產(chǎn)于2002年的寬體飛機(jī)。
Until Sunday, AirAsia had had an unblemished safety record. Tony Fernandes, the current chief executive and a billionaire, bought AirAsia in 2001 from DRB-Hicom, a government-linked conglomerate. It was a small, heavily indebted airline then, which was originally established in 1994.
截至周日,亞航的安全記錄一直堪稱完美?,F(xiàn)任首席執(zhí)行官、億萬富豪托尼·費(fèi)爾南德斯(Tony Fernandes)2001年從有政府背景的DRB-Hicom集團(tuán)公司收購了亞航。創(chuàng)立于1994年的亞航當(dāng)時(shí)是一家負(fù)債累累的小型航空公司。
Weather
天氣
In the case of Flight 370, the skies were clear and there were no unusual weather conditions or turbulence reported. In the AirAsia case, cumulonimbus cloud formations were reported in the area, and weather agencies reported a number of lightning strikes along the flight’s planned route.
在馬航370航班的案例中,飛機(jī)失聯(lián)時(shí)天空晴朗,沒有出現(xiàn)不同尋常的天氣狀況或湍流。而在亞航飛機(jī)失聯(lián)時(shí),據(jù)稱該地區(qū)出現(xiàn)了積雨云,此外,氣象機(jī)構(gòu)也提到,在該航班原定路線發(fā)生了多次雷擊。
In both cases, there was no emergency distress call issued by the crew. But in the case of Flight 8501, the pilots did inform air traffic controllers in Jakarta, Indonesia, that they were planning to increase their altitude to 38,000 feet from 32,000 feet to avoid what may have been a thunderstorm. This is why many experts have focused on weather conditions as a possible contributing factor in the disappearance of the AirAsia flight. In the case of Flight 370, the last communication from the flight with the ground was a “good night” message to Malaysian air traffic controllers just before the plane was supposed to cross into Vietnamese airspace. Instead, Flight 370 veered sharply off its intended course to Beijing, for reasons that remain unexplained.
在這兩起失聯(lián)事件中,機(jī)組人員都沒有發(fā)出緊急求救信號(hào)。不過,亞航8501的飛行員曾經(jīng)通知印尼雅加達(dá)的空中交通管制員,打算將飛行高度從3.2萬英尺提高到3.8萬英尺,避開可能出現(xiàn)的雷暴。正是因?yàn)檫@個(gè)原因,許多專家的關(guān)注焦點(diǎn)都集中在天氣狀況是否是飛機(jī)失聯(lián)的一個(gè)可能因素。在馬航370航班的事故中,飛機(jī)與地面最后的通訊內(nèi)容是,飛機(jī)與馬來西亞的空中交通管制員說的一聲“晚安”。在這之后,飛機(jī)沒有按計(jì)劃進(jìn)入越南空域,而是嚴(yán)重偏離了前往北京的既定航線,原因至今無法解釋。
Communications
通訊
Aside from the voice communications between the pilots and air traffic controllers, there would have been periodic automatic transmissions of certain flight performance and maintenance data sent from the computers on board the plane. The Indonesian authorities have not yet released any details about what information those transmissions contained, but in past accidents, these have provided important clues about what happened.
除了飛行員和空管人員的語音通訊,飛機(jī)上的計(jì)算機(jī)還會(huì)定期自動(dòng)發(fā)送某些與飛機(jī)性能和維護(hù)狀況有關(guān)的數(shù)據(jù)。印度尼西亞當(dāng)局尚未公布這些通訊內(nèi)容中的任何細(xì)節(jié),但在以往的事故中,此類數(shù)據(jù)曾提供過事故原因的重要線索。
In the case of Flight 370, the amount of such data was limited because one of those automated systems, the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or Acars, was among the systems that are believed to have been manually disabled in the cockpit. But in the case of another flight, Air France Flight 447, which disappeared of the coast of Brazil in 2009, investigators had access to a cascade of error messages that were sent over the Acars system that indicated, among other issues, a problem with the plane’s airspeed sensors that ultimately disabled the plane’s autopilot system.
370航班的這類數(shù)據(jù)量很有限,因?yàn)轱w機(jī)通信尋址與報(bào)告系統(tǒng)(Aircraft CommunicationAddressing and Reporting System,簡稱Acars)據(jù)信已經(jīng)在駕駛艙內(nèi)被人手動(dòng)停用。但2009年法航447航班在巴西海岸消失后,調(diào)查人員獲得了Acars系統(tǒng)發(fā)送的一連串錯(cuò)誤信息,它們顯示,除其他問題外,機(jī)上空速傳感器出現(xiàn)的一個(gè)問題最終導(dǎo)致了該機(jī)自動(dòng)駕駛系統(tǒng)被關(guān)閉。
There has so far been no indication in the case of the AirAsia flight that the crew took any action to disable any onboard systems. In the case of Flight 370, investigators believe that the plane’s transponders and other communications systems were deactivated manually by someone in the cockpit, possibly one of the pilots.
迄今仍無跡象表明,在亞航的這架飛機(jī)上,機(jī)組人員曾采取行動(dòng)來關(guān)閉任何機(jī)載系統(tǒng)。在370航班上,調(diào)查人員認(rèn)為,駕駛艙中的某人——可能是其中一個(gè)飛行員——手動(dòng)停用了駕駛艙中的轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)器和其他通信系統(tǒng)。
Pilots
飛行員
One of the more confounding details about Flight 370 was the fact that its captain was extremely experienced, with more than 18,000 hours of flying experience. That flight’s co-pilot was less experienced on the Boeing 777, and had around 2,700 hours under his belt. The combined flight experience of the two pilots of the AirAsia flight was much less: The captain, who has been identified as Irianto, and who like many Indonesians uses only one name, had a total of 6,100 flying hours, while the first officer had 2,275 flying hours. France’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the co-pilot was a French citizen, and news media reports have identified him as Remi Emmanuel Plesel.
關(guān)于370航班,一個(gè)更加令人困惑的狀況是,該機(jī)機(jī)長的經(jīng)驗(yàn)極為豐富,飛行時(shí)數(shù)超過1.8萬小時(shí)。副機(jī)長對(duì)于波音777的經(jīng)驗(yàn)較少,飛行時(shí)數(shù)大約為 2700小時(shí)。亞航兩名飛行員的飛行經(jīng)驗(yàn)加起來則少得多:機(jī)長被指認(rèn)為艾利安托(Irianto),像很多印尼人一樣,他只有單名,其飛行時(shí)數(shù)為6100 小時(shí),副機(jī)長飛行時(shí)數(shù)是2275小時(shí)。法國外交部證實(shí)副機(jī)長是法國人,新聞報(bào)道已經(jīng)指認(rèn)他是雷米·伊曼紐爾·普雷瑟(Remi Emmanuel Plesel)。
Status of Flight 370
370航班概況
Flight 370 left Kuala Lumpur on March 8 on an overnight flight to Beijing with 239 people on board, but its communications inexplicably turned off course and headed south. A series of fleeting satellite communications signals from the aircraft that were captured by a ground station in Perth, Australia, indicated that the flight had most likely come down somewhere over the Indian Ocean, off the west coast of Australia, when it ran out of fuel.
3月8日,370夜行航班離開吉隆坡,飛往北京,機(jī)上載有239人,但其通信設(shè)備莫名其妙地遭到關(guān)閉,飛機(jī)調(diào)頭南行。它發(fā)出了一系列短暫的衛(wèi)星通信信號(hào),被澳大利亞珀斯地面站收到,由此看來,該航班很有可能在燃油耗盡后,墜入澳大利亞西海岸以外的印度洋某處水域。
A three-month search for debris on the sea surface, as well as efforts to locate the audio beacons attached to the plane’s so-called black boxes, covered 1.7 million square miles but has failed to turn up any trace of Flight 370. In October, a new hunt began along a vast arc of rugged seabed that is thought to have been the plane’s final flight path based on calculations made from the satellite ping series.
在海面上尋找飛機(jī)碎片的工作持續(xù)了三個(gè)月,覆蓋了170萬平方英里的范圍,此外人們也試圖定位飛機(jī)“黑匣子”的音頻信標(biāo),但370航班的蛛絲馬跡一直未能找到。今年10月,新的搜尋階段開始了,人們沿著一條根據(jù)衛(wèi)星ping信號(hào)計(jì)算出來的巨大弧線搜尋崎嶇的海底,據(jù)信這條弧線就是370航班最后的飛行路徑。