An off-duty pilot riding in the cockpit of a Boeing 737 Max 8 saved the plane from crashing by fixing a malfunctioning sensor which had caused stalling effects of the plane.
The next day, the same plane crashed into the Java Sea under different crew. T
The Lion Aircrew members reportedly received the help from the off-duty pilot, who fixed a malfunctioning sensor from an automated system designed to prevent the plane from stalling.
The pilot was said to have advised the crew to kill the power to a motor that was pointing the aircraft’s nose downward, Bloomberg reported.
The same plane, with a separate crew, crashed into the Java Sea near Indonesia the next day, on October 29, 2018. All 189 passengers and crew on board were killed.
When the Federal Aviation Administration announced it was grounding all Boeing 737 Max planes, the agency said it had identified similarities between last week’s Ethiopian Airlines crash and the Lion Air crash in Indonesia six months earlier.
This means that if the crew could kill the power to a motor pointing the plane’s nose downwards, the crash could have been prevented
A Lion Air spokesman did not provide additional comment on the findings.
“All the data and information that we have on the flight and the aircraft have been submitted to the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee, a spokesperson
“We can’t provide additional comment at this stage due to the ongoing investigation on the accident.”
The 737 Max’s automated safety feature has been under intense scrutiny following the Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302 crash that killed all 157 passengers on March 10, five months after the Lion Air crash.
As Boeing and aviation authorities investigate the incidents, initial reports suggest that a faulty reading from a sensor could have played a role in both crashes.
The reports indicated that the faulty sensor may have triggered the plane’s automated system and pointed the nose downward after taking off.
Following the crash, other countries grounded the 737 Max aircraft , including China, which has the most number of 737s. The US was the last country to ground the plane.