Indonesia will not release full report on air crash

Indonesian investigators may release some of their initial findings next week into last month's crash of an AirAsia passenger jet that killed 162 people, but the full preliminary report will not be made public, a government official said on Wednesday.

The Airbus A320-200 vanished from radar screens on Dec 28, less than halfway into a two-hour flight from Indonesia's second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore. There were no survivors.

Data from radar and the aircraft's two "black box" flight recorders is providing investigators with a clearer picture of what occurred during the final minutes of Flight QZ8501.

Transport Minister Ignasius Jonan told a parliamentary hearing on Tuesday that the plane had climbed faster than normal in its final minutes, and then stalled.

The minister said the plane was ascending at a rate of 1,800 meters a minute before stalling, as it flew in stormy weather. "In the final minutes, the plane climbed at a speed which was beyond normal," he said.

The ascent was about two to three times the normal climb rate for a commercial jetliner, according to experts.

Three days after the crash, a source familiar with initial investigations had told Reuters the plane appeared to have made an "unbelievably steep climb" that may have pushed it beyond its capabilities.

Warning alarms were "screaming" as the pilots desperately tried to stabilize the plane just before it plunged into the Java Sea, one crash investigator said.

Investigators are expected to submit a preliminary report to the International Civil Aviation Organization early next week, in line with organization regulations that a preliminary report must be filed within 30 days of an accident. The final report, which will be made public, must be filed within a year.

"One month after the accident we will just make a preliminary report. No comment and no analysis," Tatang Kurniadi, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Committee, told reporters.

"This will not be exposed to the public. This is for the consumption of those countries that are involved."

The NTSC will hold a news conference on the AirAsia crash on Wednesday, but it was not clear how much will be disclosed.

Reuters - AFP