Air Asia A320 disappears over the Java Sea.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The plane is upside down in one piece in 65 - 165 feet of water in shallows between Belitung and Borneo.

[AniThyng]

It would seem possible the plane actually ditched and floated for a time...but no distress calls or beacons

[The Duchess of Zeon]

One of the bodies recovered has a life preserver on... And the only piece of wreckage recovered has been an emergency extra door. The A320 has a long history of glass cockpit failures, including one that killed all but emergency backup basic instrumentation and forced the pilots to fly at VFR while approaching New York at low altitude while trying to regain control of the aircraft (United Flight 731). The fix for the problem they suffered only became mandatory this year in the United States -- one wonders if it was implemented at all by Air Asia. The crew in that case explicitly said they expected they would have crashed if the weather had been bad. I mention this noteworthy kind of glass cockpit failure because one of the things it explicitly did in 731 was kill all radios and transponders. Normally an aircraft coming down this intact from above 30,000 feet has about three minutes to fall in a stall condition.

Now, it may simply be that the passengers during those three minutes were getting their life preservers on, and it's a simple situation of them stalling out, perhaps in conditions much like AF 447. However, the fact they recovered a floating emergency door but no other aircraft component when the aircraft is intact on the bottom starts to make it a little fishy--and I'm not sure whether or not AnyThyng's sources are the same or additional or just speculation.

[AniThyng]

One of the bodies recovered has a life preserver on... And the only piece of wreckage recovered has been an emergency extra door. The A320 has a long history of glass cockpit failures, including one that killed all but emergency backup basic instrumentation and forced the pilots to fly at VFR while approaching New York at low altitude while trying to regain control of the aircraft (United Flight 731). The fix for the problem they suffered only became mandatory this year in the United States -- one wonders if it was implemented at all by Air Asia. The crew in that case explicitly said they expected they would have crashed if the weather had been bad. I mention this noteworthy kind of glass cockpit failure because one of the things it explicitly did in 731 was kill all radios and transponders. Normally an aircraft coming down this intact from above 30,000 feet has about three minutes to fall in a stall condition.

Now, it may simply be that the passengers during those three minutes were getting their life preservers on, and it's a simple situation of them stalling out, perhaps in conditions much like AF 447. However, the fact they recovered a floating emergency door but no other aircraft component when the aircraft is intact on the bottom starts to make it a little fishy--and I'm not sure whether or not AnyThyng's sources are the same or additional or just speculation.

Consider it just speculation, assuming it's true that (at least one) body was found with life jacket on, and in one case holding hands, ( http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 50077.html ), it's a scenario that becomes possible. Frankly I doubt I could put the life jacket on properly in a calm flight, much less one in the process of a uncontrolled descent in pieces, so >some< control was probably maintained and some awareness that the plane would crash and you'd better get the jacket on is plausible in some way?

EDIT: Appearently the story is now a life jacket was found near a body, not wearing it, so...

I suppose it could come to be upside down after it sank - landed upright, tried to get people off, it rolls over and sinks?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Well, if they're now actively contradicting themselves, I'd just assume nothing and wait for more info.