World Throttle problem suspected in fatal crash of Sriwijaya Air Flight 182

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Indonesian air crash investigators send plane parts to U.S., UK for checksThe 26-year-old Boeing Co 737-500 crashed into the Java Sea shortly after takeoff from Jakarta on Jan. 9, killing all 62 people on board.

Indonesian investigators said Wednesday that a malfunctioning automatic throttle may have led to the fatal crash of a Sriwijaya Air passenger jet last month.

Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee released a preliminary report on the incident, which happened just minutes after the Boeing 737-500 took off from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport near Jakarta on the afternoon of Jan. 9. The aircraft nosedived into the waters of the Java Sea, killing all 56 passengers and six crew members on board.

© Dita Alangkara/AP A man walks past a picture of a Sriwijaya Air passenger jet that crashed into the Java Sea put up at the command center for the search and rescue mission at the Port of Tanjung Priok in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Jan. 10, 2021.

Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency combed through the wreckage of Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 and found the crash-survivable memory unit from the flight data recorder, according to the report.

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The device recorded that, as the plane climbed past 8,150 feet, the left engine's throttle lever moved backward on its own while autopilot was engaged, reducing that engine's power output. The right engine's throttle remained in place, the report said.

© Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters Family members of the passengers of Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 react while throwing flowers from the deck of the Indonesian Navy's KRI Semarang ship as they visit the site of the crash at sea, off the coast of Jakarta, Indonesia, on Jan. 22, 2021.

Air traffic control instructed the flight to stop ascending at 11,000 feet to avoid conflict with another aircraft. Air traffic control then instructed the flight to climb to 13,000 feet and one of the pilots responded at 2:39 p.m. local time. That was the last known recorded radio transmission from the plane, the report said.

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© Dita Alangkara/AP

The flight data recorder showed the jet turned to the left and began its descent after it had reached an altitude of 10,900 feet and the autopilot disengaged, according to the report.

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© Dita Alangkara/AP Indonesian police officers carry a part of an aircraft recovered from the Java Sea, where a Sriwijaya Air passenger jet crashed, at the Port of Tanjung Priok in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Jan. 11, 2021.

The plane disappeared from the radar screen at 2:40 p.m. local time, four minutes after take-off, and air traffic control was unable to get in touch with the pilots, according to the report.

Investigators are still struggling to understand exactly why the jet plunged into the sea.

© Dasril Roszandi/AFP via Getty Images Investigators inspect debris from Sriwijaya Air Flight 182, which crashed into the Java Sea minutes after takeoff, at the Port of Tanjung Priok in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Jan. 21, 2021.

"At this time, we know that the left autothrottle moved backwards, but whether the left one was broken we do not know yet because both of them showed different attitudes or it means that both had an anomaly," Capt. Nurcahyo Utomo, head of air safety investigation at Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee, said at a press conference Wednesday. "The anomaly for the left one was that it went back too far, while the right one was completely motionless, like stuck. So we do not really know whether the left or the right one was damaged. This is what we have not been able to explain to date, whether there was an autothrottle damage."

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"So what happened, we do not know," he added. "We cannot answer what the problem was."

© Dita Alangkara/AP Indonesian Navy personnel arrange parts of the flight data recorder of Sriwijaya Air Flight 182, retrieved from the Java Sea where the jet crashed, during a press conference at the Port of Tanjung Priok in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Jan. 12, 2021.

The report noted that the aircraft took off in daylight conditions and was not flying in an area with rain, significant clouds or turbulence, suggesting bad weather did not play a role in the crash.

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The crash-survivable memory unit of the flight's cockpit voice recorder has not yet been recovered. The search was halted due to heavy rain and poor conditions, but divers resumed the effort Wednesday. Investigators suspect the memory unit is "submerged under mud" at the bottom of the relatively shallow Java Sea, according to Utomo.

"Hopefully when the cockpit voice recorder is found," he said, "we can get answers about what happened in the cockpit, how the discussions between pilots were and what they did."

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© Adek Berry/AFP via Getty Images Indonesian Navy divers locate debris in the Java Sea near Lancang island, off the shores north of Jakarta, during search operations for a Sriwijaya Air passenger jet on Jan. 10, 2021.

The report said that pilots of previous flights on the same 26-year-old jet had reported problems with the automatic throttle system.

The plane was grounded for several months last year amid flight cutbacks due to the coronavirus pandemic. It underwent inspections before resuming commercial flights in December 2020, according to the report.