Lax Safety, Faulty Systems Cited in Indonesian Crash of Jet
- Regulator demands better maintenance, safety at Lion Air
- Preliminary report doesn’t identify cause of the accident
Poor safety procedures and the inability of pilots to gain control of a malfunctioning airplane may have contributed to the crash of Lion Air flight JT610 that killed 189 people, according to a preliminary report by Indonesian investigators.
During the 11 minute flight before the doomed plane crashed into the Java Sea, the pilots battled with an automatic safety system that was relying on faulty instruments that hadn’t been properly fixed despite similar failures on the plane’s previous flight from Bali. The report from Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee, based on information from the plane’s “black box” data recorder, ATC records, interviews with prior crews and other logs, criticized Lion Air’s safety culture and said pilots must be allowed to decide if they want to continue a flight.