AirAsia flight QZ8501: Plane climbed at 'beyond normal' speed before stalling, say investigators

Investigators yesterday said no evidence had been found that terrorism had played a part in the crash

Members of the salvage crew with the tail section of the AirAsia jet liner (AP) (AP)

The AirAsia passenger jet which crashed last month with 162 people on board climbed at a "beyond normal" speed before it stalled, Indonesian investigators have said.

Investigators yesterday said no evidence had been found that terrorism had played a part in the crash of the AirAsia Flight QZ8501.

Indonesian transport minister Ignasius Jonan has today described how in the final minutes of the flight, the plane "climbed at a speed which was beyond normal" before it "stalled", AFP has reported.

The Airbus A320-200 disappeared from radar screens on December 28, while flying over the Java Sea less than halfway into a two-hour flight from Surabaya, in Indonesia, to Singapore.

Part of the fuselage of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 inside a storage facility at Kumai port in Pangkalan Bun, on 19 January, 2015 (Reuters)

On Monday, Andreas Hananto told Reuters that his team of invetigators at the National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) had found "no threats" in the cockpit voice recordings.

Asked if there was any evidence from the recording that terrorism was involved, he said: "No. Because if there were terrorism, there would have been a threat of some kind.

"In that critical situation, the recording indicates that the pilot was busy with the handling of the plane."

Investigator Nurcahyo Utomo said: "We didn't hear any voice of other persons other than the pilots.

"We didn't hear any sounds of gunfire or explosions. For the time being, based on that, we can eliminate the possibility of terrorism."

Both of the plane's "black boxes" – the cockpit voice recording and the flight data recorder – have been recovered from the wreckage.

Utomo declined to give details of what was said during the final moments of the flight, citing Indonesian law, but said investigators had been able to hear "almost everything".

Investigators have also said it was unlikely an explosion occurred before the plane crashed.

Hananto said: "From the (flight data recordings) so far, it's unlikely there was an explosion.

"If there was, we would definitely know because certain parameters would show it. There are something like 1,200 parameters."

Indonesian authorities have suggested bad weather was likely to have played a part in the disaster.

Additional reporting by Reuters