Indonesian rescue personnel carry a seat from AirAsia Flight 8501 in Pangkalan Bun, Central Borneo, Indonesia, on Jan. 19.(Photo: European Pressphoto Agency)
Doomed AirAsia Flight 8501 streaked upward at fighter-jet speeds before suddenly plunging, vanishing from radar and plummeting into the Java Sea, Indonesian Transportation Minister Ignasius Jonan said Tuesday.
Jonan, speaking at an Indonesian parliament transportation hearing, said the average speed of a climbing commercial jet is probably 1,000 to 2,000 feet per minute. He did not say why the Airbus A320-300 would have suddenly climbed at a rate of 6,000 feet per minute.
Such rapid ascents can cause commercial jets to stall.
"It is not normal to climb like that," Jonan said. "It can only be done by a fighter jet."
Minutes before the crash, the pilot had asked air-traffic controllers to increase altitude 6,000 feet, to 38,000 feet, citing severe weather. The request was denied due to heavy air traffic in the area.
The Singapore-bound Airbus A320-300 crashed Dec. 28 less than an hour out of Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city. All 162 passengers and crew were killed. The fuselage, tail and black boxes have been located, but more than 100 bodies remain at the bottom of the choppy, murky sea.
Peter Goelz, a consultant and former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board, told USA TODAY he was "skeptical" that the plane could even perform the climb Jonan described.
"But the Indonesians have been very sober throughout this investigation — and information they have provided has been dead-on," Goelz said. "I have been impressed with them."
No distress signal was received and the cause of the crash had not been determined.
"So far, we've managed to download and transcribe half of the cockpit voice recorder," said Nurcahyo Utomo, a commissioner with Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee. "It is too early to draw any conclusion yet because we don't know what is in the remaining half."
He said there was no indication of terrorism and no voices on the recorder other than those of the jet's crew.
The Transport Ministry has said AirAsia did not have a license to fly the route on the day of the crash, a claim AirAsia Indonesia initially disputed. Last week, however, airline president Sunu Widyatmoko acknowledged that due to an "administrative mistake" the airline had only verbally proposed a schedule change to allow Sunday flights.
The airline has been banned from flying the Surabaya-Singapore route. The Transport Ministry has suspended scores of routes from other domestic airlines for similar alleged violations.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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