Investigators: Boeing 737 MAX Involved In Lion Air Crash Shouldn't Have Flown

Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee said in a report released Friday that Boeing Co BA needs to improve its cockpit systems and American regulators need to conduct better oversight, according to the BBC. 

What Happened

A Boeing 737 Max belonging to Lion Air crashed into the Java Sea after taking off from Jakarta Oct. 29, 2018, killing 189 people. 

The 353-page report found the Boeing jet should not have taken off in the first place, but a known cockpit issue wasn't recorded properly, according to the BBC.

The report also concluded a crucial sensor that provided data to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, wasn't properly tested.

The MCAS software was vulnerable to a single sensor error, the report said. 

The airplane maker wasn't fully blamed for the crash, as the report said the plane's first officer struggled to follow a list of set procedures that should have been memorized.

Why It's Important

The report includes a lot of "what-ifs," including what may have occurred if the less-experienced first officer wasn't given as big of a role in the doomed flight, according to the BBC.

"From what we know, there are nine things that contributed to this accident," Indonesian air accident investigator Nurcahyo Utomo told reporters. "If one of the nine hadn't occurred, maybe the accident wouldn't have occurred."

What's Next

Boeing said it will be "addressing" the recommendations from the report by "taking actions to enhance the safety" of the 737 Max to prevent the conditions "from ever happening again."

Boeing shares were down 1.18% at $340.86 at the time of publication. 

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Photo by PK-REN via Wikimedia.