FAKTA.CO, Beijing – Tidak ada seorang pun menduga, peringatan seorang pengguna salah satu forum di China pada 15 Desember mengenai akan jatuhnya pesawat AirAsia, betul-betul terjadi. Jika anda bisa berbahasa China, silakan lihat sendiri di sini, dan apabila anda tak memahami bahasa China, silakan cek di sinialih bahasa otomatis oleh Google Translate.



Para pengguna forum bbs.tianya.cn hari itu, 15 Desember tidak begitu menghiraukan pesan dari pengguna tak dikenal tersebut. Pengguna lain malah menertawakan dan mengejeknya saat menyangkutpautkan peringatannya mengenai akan hilangnya AirAsia dengan jatuhnya MH370 Malaysia Airline di Ukraina lalu.

Dengan gamblang ia menegaskan bahwa AirAsia akan menjadi target berikutnya. Ia sempat mewanti-wanti jangan sampai pembaca terbang menggunakan pesawat Malaysia dalam waktu dekat ini. Amerika Serikat ada di balik itu semua, menurutnya.

Setelah peringatannya menjadi nyata, dan postingan forumnya dibanjiri komentar, belakangan diduga pengguna yang memposting tulisan itu agen intelijen China atau hacker yang berhasil mengintip misi rahasia intelijen Amerika Serikat, lalu ingin berbuat sesuatu untuk menyelamatkan penumpang maskapai penerbangan Malaysia.

Sekarang giliran anda untuk berbuat sesuatu, bagikan artikel ini untuk memberitahu yang lain. Jangan sampai jatuh lebih banyak korban.
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AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes dumped 944,800 shares in Tune Insurance Holdings Bhd, the organization that provides travel insurance for AirAsia passengers, just days before the disappearance of Flight QZ8501.

On December 26, the Malaysian Insider reported that Fernandes, the founder of Tune Group Sdn Bhd which owns AirAsia, had sold a total of 944,800 shares in Tune Insurance Holdings Bhd, with 850,000 shares being dumped on December 22, and the other 94,800 being sold the day after.

According to its official website, Tune Insurance Holdings Bhd is “an insurance product manager” for AirAsia in which “insurance products are sold to (AirAsia) customers as part of their online booking process.”

The share prices of AirAsia and Tune Insurance Holdings both fell on the first day of trading after the disappearance of Flight QZ8501, with the former shedding 12.9 percent at one point. Tune Insurance Holdings lost 0.6%.

Fernandes decision to dump the shares less than a week before AirAsia Flight QZ8501 disappeared over the Java Sea prompted some to speculate that he may have had prior knowledge of the incident.

“Did Fernandes know his company stock was about to take a hit? The timing is suspicious,” asks Heavy.com, adding, “If so, it indicates knowledge of an impending attack on AirAsia.”

The International Business Times adds that the move has prompted many to voice the theory that Fernandes, “possibly knew about an impending attack on one of the company’s aircraft.”

The story bears some similarity to the unusual market activity in airline stocks that preceded the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. An “extraordinary” amount of ‘put options’ – speculation that a stock price will fall – were placed on United and American Airlines in the days leading up to 9/11.

As we reported earlier, one of the other main unanswered questions surrounding the incident is why a Chinese blogger urged people to avoid AirAsia flights less than two weeks before the disappearance of Flight QZ8501.

Some say the posts, which were made on Chinese social media site Weibo, are a startling indication of prior knowledge whereas others claim the posts were deceptively edited after the crash of Flight QZ8501 to create the impression that its disappearance had been predicted ahead of time.

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In the past year, Southeast Asia’s aviation industry has suffered an unprecedented number of tragedies. Although the odds of any person boarding a flight dying in a plane crash are about 1 in 11 million, three planes—two based in Malaysia, the third an Indonesian affiliate of a Malaysia-based group—have apparently gone down, with no survivors. The latest, AirAsia Flight QZ8501, had been traveling from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore when it vanished over the Java Sea.

To some extent, the three Malaysian air disasters are just brutal bad luck. Still, they point to several disturbing trends that raise the question of whether flying in peninsular Southeast Asia is completely safe. The air market in the region has embraced low-cost carriers, leading to a proliferation of flights throughout Southeast Asia, stretching air traffic controllers, and possibly allowing some airlines to expand too rapidly. Indonesian carriers, air traffic controllers, and Indonesian airspace in general have become notorious for weak safety regulations. AirAsia has responded to this crisis much more rapidly than state carrier Malaysian Airline (MAS:MK) did after the disappearance of Flight MH370 last March, but the opaque, authoritarian politics of Malaysia—which are common in Southeast Asia—will likely make the search and rescue operation, and any inquiry into why the flight crashed, more difficult than necessary.

AirAsia, modeled on carriers such as Ryanair (RYAAY:US) and Southwest Airlines, was the first low-cost airline to prosper in Southeast Asia, which had been dominated by state carriers until open-skies deals broke the market open in the past decade. AirAsia allowed the growing middle classes in Asia to use air travel for pleasure and business for the first time. The no-frills airline charged for food, bags of any significant size, choosing a specific seat, and many other services, but it also gained a reputation for solid customer service. In the wake of Flight QZ8501’s disappearance, AirAsia has continued to show its responsiveness. Through its website and emergency call centers, the airline has been providing families with up-to-the-minute and seemingly accurate information about the plane and the nascent search effort, a sharp contrast from Malaysia Airlines, which told families of passengers on MH370 virtually nothing for days after the plane vanished.
Story: After Disasters, Job Losses Ahead at Malaysia Airlines

AirAsia has expanded rapidly in Indonesia, the most populous nation in Southeast Asia and an archipelago where cheap air travel is incredibly attractive to middle classes. Indonesia-based low-cost carrier Lion Air, meanwhile, placed a massive order in 2013 for 234 new Airbus planes and followed that up with an order last month for 40 more planes. Other low-cost carriers such as Citilink, Tigerair, Valuair, and many others have also built up their route networks across the archipelago.

But while air traffic has grown in the region, and while AirAsia had a mostly solid safety record, the increase in low-cost flights may have resulted in planes being operated by men and women with less experience than in the past. Southeast Asian airspace still has the same mountains, chaotic weather, and tough approach paths as it always did. The pilot on the AirAsia flight had about 6,000 hours of flight experience on the Airbus plane he was flying, but it is unclear whether he had experience flying at 34,000 feet or higher, where he was trying to take the plane to avoid bad weather. The higher the plane rises, the more difficult it can be to navigate tricky conditions such as thin air and ice crystals. Some low-cost carriers seem particularly strapped trying to find quality staff and allegedly push their pilots and crew to work too many hours in order to run so many flights. Indonesian carrier Lion Air has had at least three of its pilots arrested for crystal methamphetamine use since 2011; crystal meth is a stimulant that can be used to stay awake and alert.

This increase in flights seems to have particularly taxed air traffic controllers, pilots, and mechanics operating in Indonesia. The country has become infamous for poor management of planes in the air and coming in for landings, and for lax enforcement of airlines’ need to maintain planes. Pay for air traffic controllers, mechanics, and regulators of the aviation industry remains low by regional standards, and graft is endemic at all levels of regulatory agencies in Indonesia; the country ranks among the most corrupt in East Asia in Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index. Yet the increase in flights into and through the country has required more air traffic controllers, mechanics, and pilots, whether Indonesia is capable of providing trained people to fill these jobs.

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