Indonesian Crashed Craft Had Prior Instrument Error

Reports following the crash of Indonesian jet reveals that the plane had suffered instrument problems the day before.

A technical log from a flight from Bali to Jakarta on Sunday said an instrument was “unreliable” and the pilot had to hand over to the first officer. The Boeing 737 airliner crashed into the sea with 189 people on board.

It went down after taking off from Jakarta. There is no sign of survivors.

The BBC has so far been unable to reach Lion Air, the low-cost airline which owns the plane, for comment.

Flight JT 610 was headed for the western city of Pangkal Pinang on Monday when it came down. Rescuers have recovered some bodies and personal items, including baby shoes. Families are being told to go to a hospital to identify the dead.

A technical log obtained by the BBC from the plane’s previous flight suggests that the airspeed reading on the captain’s instrument was unreliable, and the altitude readings differed on the captain’s and first officer’s instruments.

“Identified that CAPT [captain’s] instrument was unreliable and handover control to FO [first officer],” the log reads. “Continue NNC of Airspeed Unreliable and ALT disagree.”

The crew decided to continue their flight and landed safely at Jakarta.

Earlier Lion Air Chief Executive Edward Sirait said the plane had had an unspecified “technical issue” when flying from Denpasar in Bali to Jakarta, but he added that this had been “resolved”.

“If the plane was broken, it would have been impossible to clear the plane to fly from Denpasar,” he said. “When we received the flight crew’s report, we immediately fixed the problem.”

The airline operates 11 Boeing 737 Max 8 planes but the others have not had a similar technical problem and there is no plan to ground the fleet, he added.

What happened to the plane?
Flight JT 610 took off from Jakarta at 06:20 on Monday (23:30 GMT on Sunday).

It was due to arrive at Depati Amir airport in Pangkal Pinang an hour later but 13 minutes into the flight, authorities lost contact.

The pilot had asked to return to Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta airport, officials say.