Indonesia – The last words of the pilots of the Indonesia’s Lion Airline were “Allah-ho-Akbar” some seconds before the flight crashed into the ocean in October which killed over 189 passengers on board, revealed French Air Accident Investigation agency (BAE) on Tuesday.
According to the investigation revealed by Reuters, the pilots of a crashed Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX scoured a handbook as they struggled to understand why the jet was lurching downwards, but ran out of time before it hit the water.
Investigators are considering how a computer ordered the plane to dive in response to data from a faulty sensor and whether the pilots had enough training to respond appropriately to the emergency, among other factors.
However, a Lion Airline spokesman said all data and information had been given to investigators and declined to comment further.
The report said in November that, the captain was at the controls of Lion Air flight JT610 when the nearly new jet took off from Jakarta, and the first officer was handling the radio, according to a preliminary report issued in November. Just two minutes into the flight, the first officer reported a “flight control problem” to air traffic control and said the pilots intended to maintain an altitude of 5,000 feet.
The flight data recorder shows the final control column inputs from the first officer were weaker than the ones made earlier by the captain.
The Indian-born captain was silent at the end, while the Indonesian first officer said “Allahu Akbar”, or “God is greatest”, a common Arabic phrase in the majority-Muslim country that can be used to express excitement, shock, praise or distress, all the sources mentioned.
The plane then hit the water, killing all 189 people on board.
The recorder from the cockpit was not recovered until January from the Ocean’s floor.
