The Lion Air pilots whose plane nosedived into the sea last month, killing all those aboard, were battling multiple malfunctions during the short, doomed flight, according to a trove of new data released on Thursday by Indonesian investigators.
They faced a cacophony of warnings that started seconds after takeoff and continued for the remaining 11 minutes before the crash.
The alerts included a so-called stick shaker — a loud device that makes a thumping noise and vibrates the control column to warn pilots that they are in danger of losing lift on the wings — and instruments that registered different readings for the captain and copilot, according to data presented to a panel of lawmakers in Jakarta.
It also showed for the first time that in the final seconds, as they struggled to pull the Boeing Co 737 Max 8 out of a dive that was being commanded by the plane’s flight computers, the control column was resisting them, requiring a force of as much as about 100 pounds (45.4kg) of pressure.
However, the data also showed that the plane was controllable — the pilots has done so for about 10 minutes before the final plunge — and records from the previous flight of the same jet showed another set of pilots had an identical set of failures and landed without incident.
“There are so many questions, it’s sort of hard to put in one short statement,” said Roger Cox, a retired investigator with the US National Transportation Safety Board and a former airline pilot.
“I would be very interested in knowing why one crew as able to cope with this stick shaker and trim anomaly, and why the next crew could not and I’d want to know why Lion Air could not or would not repair the problem,” Cox said.
Lion Air Flight 610 crashed into the Java Sea on Oct. 29, killing all 189 people onboard. The jet was knifing through the air at about 805kph or more in its final seconds as it neared the water, according to the plane’s crash-proof flight recorder.
In a statement, Boeing deferred comment to the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee.
The manufacturer has sent two updates to operators of the Max jet since the accident, which include reminders that there are existing emergency procedures for such situations.
Preliminary findings might be released on Wednesday, Soerjanto Tjahjono, the committee’s chairman, told lawmakers in Jakarta.
In the past week, Boeing has stepped up its response by pushing back on suggestions that the company could have better alerted its customers to the jet’s new anti-stall feature.
The three largest US pilots’ unions and Lion Air director of operations Zwingly Silalahi have expressed concern over what they said was a lack of information.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
The US government has banned US government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens, The Associated Press (AP) has learned. Four people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP about the policy, which was put into effect by departing US ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The people would speak only on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a confidential directive. Although some US agencies already had strict rules on such relationships, a blanket “nonfraternization” policy, as it is known, has
OPTIONS: Asked if one potential avenue to a third term was having J.D. Vance run for the top job and then pass the baton to him, Trump said: ‘That’s one,’ among others US President Donald Trump on Sunday that “I’m not joking” about trying to serve a third term, the clearest indication he is considering ways to breach a constitutional barrier against continuing to lead the country after his second term ends at the beginning of 2029. “There are methods which you could do it,” Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News from Mar-a-Lago, his private club. He elaborated later to reporters on Air Force One from Florida to Washington that “I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term