Indonesian investigators found scores of problems and missteps in connection with last year’s fatal Lion Air crash, ranging from design flaws in Boeing Co.’s 737 Max airplane to certification failures by U.S. regulators and pilot error.
Eighty-nine significant findings are listed in connection with the disaster, according to an extract from the final crash report distributed to stakeholders and seen by Bloomberg News.
One major point of focus is a flight-control feature called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, which has also been implicated in an Ethiopian Airlines crash in March.
A spokesman for Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee declined to comment or verify the authenticity of the report, which is scheduled to be publicly released later Friday. Boeing declined to comment ahead of the report’s official release.
Minutes after taking off on the morning of Oct. 29, Lion Air Flight 610 nosedived into the Java Sea, killing all 189 people on board.
The 737 Max has been grounded worldwide since shortly after the subsequent crash in Ethiopia, costing Boeing $9.2 billion and weighing on the company’s outlook. Indonesia’s findings come as regulators worldwide assess the fate of what was the Chicago-based company’s best-selling plane. Boeing says it is has made “significant progress” in returning the 737 Max to service.
Via Bloomberg
