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Faulty system, poor pilot monitoring contributed to Sriwijaya Air crash: KNKT
The crash into the Java Sea after take-off from Jakarta, which killed all 62 people on board, was Indonesia's third major commercial plane crash in just over six years and shone a spotlight on its poor air safety record.
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Navy divers head out to the crash site off the northern coast of Jakarta on January 12, 2021, during recovery operations for Sriwijaya Air flight SJ182 which crashed shortly after takeoff from Jakarta on January 9 with 62 people onboard. (Agence France-Presse/Azwar Ipank)
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faulty automatic engine throttle system that was not properly monitored by pilots led to a deadly January 2021 crash of a Sriwijaya Co BA.N737-500 jet, the air accident investigator of the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) said in a final report on Thursday.
The crash into the Java Sea after take-off from Jakarta, which killed all 62 people on board, was Indonesia's third major commercial plane crash in just over six years and shone a spotlight on its poor air safety record.
Problems with the autothrottle system that automatically controls engine power had been reported 65 times in the 26-year-old jet's maintenance logs since 2013 and were still unresolved before the accident, the agency said in its 202-page report.
A working autothrottle is not required for a plane to be dispatched because pilots can control the thrust levers manually.
However, KNKT said in this case they did not appear to have closely monitored the asymmetrical thrust situation involving the left engine throttle lever moving back to as low as 34 percent speed after takeoff while the right lever stayed in its original climb setting at about 92 percent.
"There were several indications available that the pilots could have checked to identify the aircraft anomalies, such as engine parameters, thrust levers position, and roll angle," the agency said, adding that complacency and confirmation bias may have been a factor in the poor monitoring.
Sriwijaya did not respond immediately to a request for comment. Boeing, the manufacturer of the 737-500 jet, declined to comment.
