The reason for the crash of the Lion Air plane, which fell into the sea off Jakarta at the end of October, remains unclear. However, the evidence is slowly condensing – and it looks like a bug in the cockpit software is to blame for the accident.
This error could actually affect all Boeing’s 737 MAX aircraft manufacturers and the US aviation authority are now responding.
Software bug in Boeing: Warning to all airlines
First, the aircraft manufacturer Boeing issued a safety instruction to anyone flying with the models 737 MAX-8 and -9. It indicates an error in the software concerning the sensor of the angle of attack. If it has a fault, it could lead to a dangerous downward movement of the aircraft, which must be compensated manually by the crew.
The US Federal Aviation Administration has now stepped in and issued a safety precaution the highest category in the case that the problem with the sensor during the flight with the affected machines recurs.
US Aviation Authority issues safety instructions to pilots
The Authority has all the pilots to bring in an unwanted downward control pulse which could result in a crash, manually actuate a wheel using a hand crank to trim the aircraft about the machine back into balance.
Whether the crash of Lion Air JT610 flight is really due to the faulty sensor software, was not yet clear. Bisland was only the data recorder found, the voice recorder, which plays an important role in the investigation of the disaster, could not yet be recovered.
