Lion Air has denied that JT-610 was not airworthy before its doomed flight on Oct. 29 after the National Transportation Safety Commission (KNKT) stated otherwise based on the results of their preliminary investigation into the crash.
Lion Air President Director Edward Sirait says the airline will seek clarification from KNKT today about the latter’s statement that the plane had technical issues on its penultimate flight (from Denpasar to Jakarta the day before the crash) and should therefore have been grounded.
“To us, the statement is inaccurate and after Denpasar the plane was cleared to fly in accordance with the relevant documents and what was done by our technicians,” Edward said, as quoted by Viva yesterday.
Edward added that Lion may consider legal action against KNKT if they don’t retract or rectify their statement — which has made headlines globally — as it could damage the airline’s reputation.
“If there’s no response [from KNKT], we will exercise our right to take legal action. We will still clarify first,” he said.
While delivering their preliminary findings into last month’s crash of Lion Air JT-610 yesterday, which killed all 189 people on board, KNKT said they believe the plane should have been grounded before its fatal flight due to previous technical issues and demanded that Lion Air improve its safety culture and better document repair work on its planes.
The transport safety agency did not pinpoint a definitive cause of the accident, with a final crash report not likely to be filed until next year.
But its investigators said that Lion Air kept putting the plane back into service despite repeatedly failing to fix a problem with the airspeed indicator in the days leading up to the fatal flight.
US airline manufacturers Boeing has also come under fire for possible glitches on the 737 MAX jet — which was commissioned to the JT-610 and had entered service just last year.
The APA, a US airline pilots union, said that carriers and pilots had not been informed by Boeing of certain changes in the aircraft control system installed on the new MAX variants of the 737.
Lion Air Flight JT610 plunged into the sea less than half an hour after taking off on a routine flight to Pangkal Pinang city.
Authorities have called off the grim task of identifying victims of the crash with 125 passengers officially recognized after testing on human remains that filled some 200 body bags.
