Investigators examine engine parts from the ill-fated Lion Air flight after they were recovered from the bottom of the Java Sea. Photo: AFP
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https://scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3034193/lion-air-crash-investigators-tell-victims-families-737-max Southeast Asia
Lion Air crash investigators tell victims’ families Boeing 737 MAX design flaws linked to accident
- Indonesian investigators briefed victims’ families on Wednesday ahead of the release of a final report into last October’s crash
- All 189 people on board the doomed jet were killed. A second deadly crash months later saw all Boeing 737 MAX grounded worldwide.
Family members of one of the doomed plane’s pilots wait at the Transport Ministry for the briefing to begin. Photo: Reuters
Mechanical and design issues contributed to the crash of a Lion Air 737 MAX jet last October, Indonesian investigators told victims’ families in a briefing on Wednesday ahead of the release of a final report.
Contributing factors to the crash of the new Boeing jet, which killed all 189 people on board, included incorrect assumptions on how an anti-stall device called the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) functioned and how pilots would react, slides in the presentation showed.
The briefing slides showed that a lack of documentation about how systems would behave in a crash scenario, including the activation of a “stick shaker” device that warned pilots of a dangerous loss of lift, also contributed.
“Deficiencies” in the flight crew’s communication and manual control of the aircraft contributed as well, the slides showed, as did alerts and distractions in the cockpit.
The deficiencies had been “identified during training,” the slides said, without elaborating.
Reliance on a single angle-of-attack sensor made MCAS more vulnerable to failure, while the sensor on the plane that crashed had been miscalibrated during an earlier repair, according to the slides.
The final report will be released on Friday.
Some relatives of the victims at the briefing in Jakarta expressed disappointment that direct responsibility wasn’t assigned.
“Why isn’t the airline heavily sanctioned?” said Anton Sahadi, 30, whose relatives Riyan Aryandi and Muhammad Rafi Andrian were killed in the crash. “This isn’t about one or two lives, it’s about 189 lives.”
A Lion air plane on the tarmac of Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II airport in Palembang, Indonesia. Photo: EPA
The role of the civil investigators is not to assign blame but to draw lessons that will make flying safer. Separate court actions will address who is legally responsible for the crash.
Ony Soerjo Wibowo, an investigator with Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) who delivered the briefing, did not comment afterward, and nor did an agency representative.
A representative for Lion Air declined to comment.
A family member of one of the flight attendants aboard the doomed flight speaks to the media in the lobby of the Transport Ministry ahead of the briefing. Photo: Reuters
A Boeing spokeswoman would also not comment on the briefing, saying: “As the report hasn’t been officially released by the authorities, it is premature for us to comment on its contents.”
The 737 MAX was grounded worldwide after a second deadly crash in Ethiopia in March 2019.
US planemaker Boeing is under growing pressure to explain what it knew about 737 MAX problems before the aircraft entered service, especially after a report revealed messages from a former test pilot describing erratic software behaviour on the 737 MAX jet two years before the recent crashes.
Boeing has already said it would redesign the anti-stall system to rely on more than a single sensor and to help reduce pilot workload.
The planemaker is expected to release its third-quarter financial results later on Wednesday.
Boeing last month settled the first claims stemming from the Lion Air crash, a US plaintiffs’ lawyer said.
Three other sources told Reuters the families of those killed will receive at least US$1.2 million each.
The manufacturer faces nearly 100 lawsuits over the Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10, which killed all 157 people on board the flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi.
The 737 MAX was grounded following the second crash, leaving Boeing and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grappling to contain a crisis that has left 346 people dead, forced airlines to ground more than 300 aircraft, and put Boeing deliveries worth more than US$500 billion on hold.
Boeing on Tuesday ousted the top executive of its commercial airplanes division, Kevin McAllister, marking the first high-level departure from the planemaker since two fatal crashes.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse