In addition to a technical defect, the careless attitude of the pilots contributed to the accident, according to the final report published on Thursday by the State Committee for Traffic Safety (KNKT). All 62 occupants died in the crash in January 2021.
The Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500 crashed shortly after take-off off the coast of the Indonesian capital Jakarta. According to investigators, she initially deviated sharply from her course and then went into a steep nosedive.
According to the final report, a malfunction in the automatic thrust control caused the machine to drift to the left until it finally got out of control and went into a nosedive. The fact that the course change went unnoticed for so long was probably due to the pilots’ inattentiveness. Far too late and with the wrong maneuvers, they then tried to avert the accident. The report also attributed the fact that the pilots were not able to react appropriately to the lack of regulations and guidelines for such emergency situations.
In their interim report, the investigators had already reported complaints from previous crews about problems with the automatic thrust control of the 26-year-old machine. It had therefore been repaired several times. After the plane crashed, the US Federal Aviation Administration instructed the US aircraft manufacturer Boeing to subject all older 737 aircraft to an inspection.
Source: Nachrichten
