AirAsia plane crash caused by faulty component, crew action
Jakarta, Dec 1, 2015, AFP – Faulty equipment and the crew's "inability to control the aircraft" led an AirAsia A320 to crash into the Java Sea last year, killing all 162 peopleonboard, a report said on Tuesday. 
Flight QZ8501 went down in stormy weather on December 28, during what was supposed to be a short flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore. 
In their final report into the accident released Tuesday, Indonesia's official National Transportation Safety Committee said a major factor was a fault with a system that helps control the rudder's movement. 
Cracked soldering in the component caused it to malfunction and send repeatedwarning messages to the pilots. 
When they received the fourth warning, the pilots pulled circuit breakers on one of the aircraft's computers, removing power from the faulty system in a bid to resetit. But in doing so, they also turned off the plane's autopilot.
"Subsequent flight crew action resulted in inability to control the aircraft," said the report. The plane went into a "prolonged stall condition that was beyond thecapability of the crew to recover", it said.
It added the flight data recorders did not indicate the weather had affected the aircraft. 
The report said the faulty component, the Rudder Travel Limiter, had suffered 23 problems in the past 12 months, citing maintenance records. 
The crash of the Airbus A320-200 triggered a huge international search, with ships and aircraft from several nations involved in a lengthy hunt that was hampered by strong currents and bad weather. The bodies of 56 victims were never recovered.
Ministry probes "indecent hazing activities"
College haze humiliation sparks probe
Dumrongkiat Mala 
The Education Ministry has ordered a probe into "indecent hazing activities" at a college involving seared buttocks and students being forced into "mouth-to-mouth" feeding. 
Education Minister Gen Dapong Ratanasuwan yesterday ordered the Office of the Private Education Commission (Opec) to investigate the claims surrounding seniorstudents forcing freshmen to partake in humiliating activities. 
The probe came after a video clip, which went viral, was released showing a group of shirtless vocational students conducting mouth-to-mouth feeding for the amusementof older students during the "ceremony" . 
An additional set of photos show students having their buttocks sprayed with flamesand being forced to lie on the ground with their hands tied up behind their backs and doing push-ups in the water. 
The posts drew a torrent of negative comments. 
Gen Dapong said Opec informed him about the incidents and knew which privatevocational school the students in the video clip are from. 
"I spoke to the director of this private school and asked him to work closely with Opec to find out the truth," Gen Dapong said. 
"The ministry initially demanded the school revise its measures and