Preliminary Report on Deadly Boeing Passenger Plane Crash in Indonesia Released

Investigators and researchers from Indonesia's Transportation Safety Agency have released a preliminary report on the events leading to the deadly crash of a Lion Air Boeing 737 Max. According to Indonesian media, the aim of this report is not to identify the 'culprit' or 'culprits' of the incident. Publications have quoted investigators stating that their focus is on the system that prevents the aerodynamic stall during flight. The Associated Press reports that investigators want to determine whether erroneous data from the aircraft's sensors caused the nose of the plane to continuously tilt toward the ground. The almost new Lion Air aircraft was a Boeing 737 Max 8 that crashed into the sea near Jakarta on November 7, with 189 passengers on board. None of the passengers survived the incident. A final conclusion on the sequence of events leading to the crash will take more time, and the final report is not expected to be released before next year. The Jakarta Globe states that last week, Nurcahyo Utomo, one of the researchers from Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee, told parliament representatives that Boeing's automated systems continuously detected that the aircraft was in a 'stall' condition and sent warnings to the cockpit. A stall is a condition in flight where friction with the air significantly increases; this situation can occur, for example, during takeoff or landing, and since the altitude is very low at that time, it is considered potentially dangerous. As a result, the system known as 'MCAS' - a recently implemented automated system in this aircraft - would automatically activate and tilt the nose of the plane toward the ground to prevent it from 'stalling.' A Boeing 737 Max in a photo from last year. Apparently, the pilots managed to bring the aircraft back to normal several times before it ultimately crashed into the sea. The French news agency also reports that the report raises the possibility that the pilots were trying to find a solution to the problem after requesting to return to Jakarta Airport, the origin of the flight. Nurcahyo Utomo told reporters today, 'In our view, the aircraft was not suitable for flight.' These findings could raise concerns about potential issues in the flight systems of one of the world's most advanced aircraft, as well as concerns regarding the training of pilots and ground crew of Lion Air. Peter Lam, an aviation expert and former Boeing engineer, described the interaction between the automated system and the pilots as a 'deadly game of cat and mouse'; the aircraft tilted its nose toward the ground, the pilots countered it and tried to raise the nose themselves, only to face the same problem again five seconds later. Lam stated that this occurred 26 times, but the pilots could not understand what was happening and kept using the same methods they knew. He told the Associated Press that the lack of a simple way to check the sensors, the fact that the crew apparently had not been informed of this issue in previous flights, and that the Lion Air aircraft had likely not been repaired after a similar problem in previous flights, 'is concerning.' Lam reminded that 'every accident is a chain of events, and this fatal accident is truly regrettable.' Boeing has yet to respond to the report. Searchers have not yet succeeded in finding the cockpit voice recorder, which could provide further insights into the findings. The status and future of Lion Air remain uncertain. Lion Air is Indonesia's largest private airline and the largest low-cost airline in Southeast Asia after AirAsia.