Crews search the waters of the Java Sea off Indonesia on January 10 for wreckage belonging to Sriwijaya Air Flight 182, which crashed a day earlier. Sixty-two people died aboard the plane. File Photo by Basarnas/EPA-EFE
Feb. 10 (UPI) -- The crash of a Sriwijaya Air jetliner in the waters off Indonesia last month, which killed everyone on board, may have been caused by a faulty auto-throttle device on the Boeing 737, investigators said in a preliminary report Wednesday.
Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee said in the report that "anomalies" with the device may have played a key role in the Jan. 9 crash. The airliner crashed into the Java Sea shortly after taking off in Jakarta. Sixty-two people on the plane were killed.
The 40-page report says that the pilots found several days before the crash that the auto-throttle wasn't working properly and needed to be repaired. Multiple times, an engineer serviced the device.
Investigator Nurcahyo Utomo said Wednesday that the plane's left throttle lever "moved backward too far" while the right throttle "did not move at all as if it was stuck."
The problem, investigators added, is that the anomalies created a power imbalance from the plane's two engines.
The Sriwijaya Air Flight 182, headed to the island of Borneo, lost contact about four minutes after takeoff in heavy rain. The 26-year-old plane fell more than 10,000 feet in less than 60 seconds, officials said.
According to Wednesday's report, the autopilot disengaged just after takeoff -- and the plane, captained by a highly experienced former air force pilot, rolled to the left and plunged nose-first into the sea.
The flight data recorder, one of two "black boxes" that contain key data during a flight, was found a few days after the crash. The cockpit voice recorder is still missing.
"If the [cockpit voice recorder] is not found ... it will be a saddening condition for us," NTSC chief Soerjanto Tjahjono said. "Because we cannot produce any results or conclusions that are scientifically accountable."
