Pilots Turned Off Important Computers Ahead of AirAsia 8501 Crash, Source Says

As the investigation into the downed AirAsia Flight 8501 continues, sourcess say pilots of the aircraft disabled computers shotly before the plane crashed into the Java Sea.

Sources close to the investigation say the pilots disabled an important computer meant to prevent the plane from going out of control moments before the commercial airfract, travelling from Indonesia to Singapore, crashed into the Java Sea, killing all 162 people on board.

After recovering the black boxes from the crash site, investigators have determined that the plane took an impossibly-steep climb, causing the plan to lose control and subsequently plummet into the sea.

According to Bloomberg, the pilots reportedly turned off the computer systems to bypass the alerts on the plane's flight augmentation computers. Although sources say it would be possible to fly the plane manually without the computers, it remains a mystery why the aircraft would have taken a steep climb of more than 5,000 feet in less than 30 seconds.

Indonesian authorities have been careful to neither confirm nor deny that the pilots turned off key computers before the crash on December 28.

"About the flight augmentation computer, I can't deny, nor confirm it," Ertata Lananggalih, who is investigating the crash with Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee, said during a press conference this week.

 "It's technical and it's in investigation territory. Currently, flight augmentation computer is still being further investigated."

Investigators have also determined that the plane's copilot was flying the aircraft when it crashed.

The "second in command, the co-pilot, was [...] flying the plane," Indonesia National Transportation Safety Committee Investigator Mardjono Siswosuwarno said during a press conference, adding "The captain, sitting on the left, was the monitoring pilot."