Speculation on the Lion Air Crash

It's been close to two months since the accident of a brand new Lion Air Boeing 737 that landed in water just 900 feet short of the runway. While over running a runway is not unheard of, nowadays it's a very rare event to hear about a brand new commercial aircraft landing short of any sort of runway. It's interesting to note that initial reports also claimed that aircraft reported no mechanical failures and went as far to suggest that the inexperience of the flight crew might be to blame. Well, it seems out friends over at The Daily Traveler have come out with an article that appears to corroborate initial speculations.

New Information on Lion Air Crash: Scary on Two Levels

Why did a Lion Air Boeing 737-800 crash on final approach to Bali in April? I have now been able to reconstruct the final minutes of flight 904 from a preliminary report by Indonesian crash investigators, and it reinforces concerns I have over the skill of the pilots you could be entrusting your life to in some parts of southeast Asia.

With four minutes to landing the 101 passengers were strapped into their seats, the weather was clear and paradise beckoned.

The 48-year-old Indonesian captain had handed over control to the copilot, a 24-year-old Indian. The landing, with a flight path over water, should have been routine, and with a minute to go to touchdown the copilot disengaged the autopilot and prepared to fly the Boeing 737-800 manually to the runway.

But there was a sudden squall over the water. The copilot told the captain he had lost sight of the runway and handed back control to the captain. The airplane was by then less than a 100 feet from the water. The captain attempted to abort the landing and make a go-around.

It was too late. The 737 hit the water, parts of a coral reef and a sea wall. It finally came to rest about 60 feet from the shore and 900 feet from the runway. Water was surging into the cabin from a gash on the left side.

The upside of this story is that nobody died. Four passengers were seriously injured, scores of others had lesser injuries. And the evacuation of the plane was exemplary: Local police, armed forces, rescue personnel and bystanders waded into the shallow water and helped passengers to reach shore—some passengers swam. Everyone was on dry land within 35 minutes.

The downside is that this is a classic case of a crash that should never have happened. Bali international airport has every modern navigation aid, and the Boeing 737-800 was a virtually new airplane with advanced cockpit instruments. The appearance of a sudden squall near an airport is common everywhere in the tropics—it should present no hazard to a competent pilot.

This accident should be a red flag to regulators—and for travelers. Low-cost carriers are multiplying in southeast Asia. Lion Air already has nearly half of Indonesia’s domestic market, which is growing at the astounding rate of 15 percent a year. To satisfy demand, Lion Air recently ordered 230 more Boeing 737s and 234 Airbus A320s—an unprecedented windfall for both plane makers.

This growth is, however, clearly outstripping the supply of experienced pilots. The captain of flight 904 was a veteran, with 7,000 hours of experience on 737s; the copilot was a relative novice, with only 923 hours on 737s. With such a disparity the captain should not have left the landing to the copilot.

Most Indonesian carriers—including Lion Air—are banned from flying into both Europe and the U.S. by safety authorities. The country’s regulatory regime is widely regarded as not rigorous enough to meet international standards for either pilot proficiency or maintenance checks.

It’s simply not enough to have those shiny new airplanes painted with dazzling livery and staffed with a welcoming, gracious cabin crew. There is a new age of mass travel upon us, and it has to be underpinned by a dependable culture of safety—and that must include the regulators being given the power to limit the expansion of flights until they, and we, can be satisfied that pilot proficiency is equal to that of North America and Europe.

In light of the the new minimum requirements of flight crews working for scheduled air carriers in the United States, I've always found the option of going to work at a foreign air carrier for a few years to build hours an appealing one. Reading articles like the one above, however, makes this thought a fleeting fantasy more than a possible reality. A safety culture within an airline is key and it appears that numerous Indonesian airlines simply do not make the grade as of late.

This Lion Air accident is only one of a handful of accidents that have happened in the past few years to really highlight this. One may wish to keep that in mind the next time they come across an episode of "Air Crash Investigation" online. The question of whether or not the culture of safety is improving in some Southeast Asian airlines is an important one and the answer to which seems to answered time and time again leaving most of the traveling public believing that what ever has been done just simply is not good enough.

"Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect." - Captain A. G. Lamplugh