PBS高端访谈:亚航失联的主要原因是因为天气?

 　　GWEN IFILL: Now back to the search for the missing AirAsia flight.

　　Wall Street Journal correspondent Gaurav Raghuvanshi has been covering this story from Singapore. I spoke¹ to him a short time ago via Skype.

　　Gaurav Raghuvanshi, thank you so much for joining us tonight.

　　Can you tell us what the latest is that you know?

　　GAURAV RAGHUVANSHI, The Wall Street Journal: Well, it has been more than two days and the plane is still missing.

　　So probably get identified as the day breaks today. As for the aircraft are not able to search. So, when the day breaks, which will happen in a couple of — in fact, a little more than an hour from now, we will see the ships and the aircraft renewing their search and trying to look for this aircraft.

　　GWEN IFILL: How extensive is the search at this point?

　　GAURAV RAGHUVANSHI: They're trying to look all over this — an area that is around the last known location of the aircraft.

　　And they said yesterday that they want to broaden the search a little bit. So they are including some parts of the islands over there to see if the aircraft actually ended up on land.

　　GWEN IFILL: Is weather the leading theory? I know it's monsoon² season there.

　　GAURAV RAGHUVANSHI: That's right. Monsoon is the season.

　　And weather is possibly one of the factors, because we are aware that there was a little bit of a problem at the time the plane was in the area. But until the aircraft is found, everything is just a theory.

　　GWEN IFILL: Do we know anything about the experience of the pilot?

　　GAURAV RAGHUVANSHI: Well, he had more than 20,000 hours of flight experience.

　　He was an Indonesian air force pilot, formerly³ an air force pilot. And he had more than 6,000 hours on this particular aircraft type with this airline.

　　GWEN IFILL: And how about the safety record of AirAsia itself?

　　GAURAV RAGHUVANSHI: Well, AirAsia so far has had no safety issues. It has been a very safe airline in the last 20 years or so that it has been running. So, with AirAsia, there have been no safety issues.

　　GWEN IFILL: There have been obvious comparisons to the missing Malaysia jet from earlier this year, even though the routing obviously is different.

　　But can you tell us what is similar and what is different?

　　GAURAV RAGHUVANSHI: Well, the only thing that is similar is that the aircraft has not been found.

　　Typically, there are — if an aircraft goes down, there are these transmitters that get triggered. And it is fairly quickly that the signals from those transmitters are picked up, so we broadly know where the aircraft is. And that seems to be the case with this particular — with this particular incident, because the signals from that transmitters — from those transmitters from the airplane have not been picked up.

　　GWEN IFILL: And yet other planes, apparently⁴, went through similar airspace just before and after this plane turned up missing.

　　Is — anything surface yet from those other jets that tells us something, whether they also went through turbulence⁵, whether they changed altitude, anything that would give any indication about what happened here?

　　GAURAV RAGHUVANSHI: There was an Emirates aircraft that was about 20 minutes ahead of this plane.

　　And that plane did — did make some — some — same distress⁶ calls. It was seen on the radar⁷ track as it was moving slightly away from its course. And that's probably because of weather.

　　We tried to speak to the airline. They said that the aircraft arrived on time, and they wouldn't give us more details. But, from the radar track, it does appear that that particular aircraft also tried to avoid some weather.

　　GWEN IFILL: The Java Sea, where the search is concentrated, is supposed to be more shallow than the area where they were looking for the Malaysia jet.

　　Is that — has that raised hopes about the potential of finding any kind of wreckage⁸?

　　GAURAV RAGHUVANSHI: Well, yes, there is a lot of difference in the terrain⁹, because the Java Sea, where the aircraft was last located, is actually reasonably shallow, like — it something like 50 meters, which is actually pretty shallow.

　　So that does give hope that it will be easier, the search for this aircraft will be easier.

　　GWEN IFILL: And how many countries are we talking about involved in this search right now?

　　GAURAV RAGHUVANSHI: At the moment, it is primarily Indonesia, which has been helped by aircraft and ships from Malaysia and Singapore.

　　There are other countries as well. The U.S. has offered and they stand ready to come into the search if required.

　　GWEN IFILL: Gaurav Raghuvanshi of The Wall Street Journal, thank you so much.

　　GAURAV RAGHUVANSHI: Thank you.

1 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 monsoon   

n.季雨，季风，大雨

参考例句：

• The monsoon rains started early this year.今年季雨降雨开始得早。
• The main climate type in that region is monsoon.那个地区主要以季风气候为主要气候类型。

3 formerly   

adv.从前，以前

参考例句：

• We now enjoy these comforts of which formerly we had only heard.我们现在享受到了过去只是听说过的那些舒适条件。
• This boat was formerly used on the rivers of China.这船从前航行在中国内河里。

4 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

5 turbulence   

n.喧嚣，狂暴，骚乱，湍流

参考例句：

• The turbulence caused the plane to turn over.空气的激流导致飞机翻转。
• The world advances amidst turbulence.世界在动荡中前进。

6 distress   

n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛

参考例句：

• Nothing could alleviate his distress.什么都不能减轻他的痛苦。
• Please don't distress yourself.请你不要忧愁了。

7 radar   

n.雷达，无线电探测器

参考例句：

• They are following the flight of an aircraft by radar.他们正在用雷达追踪一架飞机的飞行。
• Enemy ships were detected on the radar.敌舰的影像已显现在雷达上。

8 wreckage   

n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏

参考例句：

• They hauled him clear of the wreckage.他们把他从形骸中拖出来。
• New states were born out of the wreckage of old colonial empires.新生国家从老殖民帝国的废墟中诞生。

9 terrain   

n.地面，地形，地图

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• He knows the terrain of this locality like the back of his hand.他对这一带的地形了如指掌。