A scheduled flight on Lion Air 610 took off and crashed around 13 minutes after takeoff on October 29. According to an article called “Lion Air Plane Crash Latest: ‘No Survivors’ after Indonesia Passenger Jet Crashes with 189 on Board” on The Standard’s website (www.standard.co.uk), all 189 passengers and crew died in the flight. Wreckage from the plane was found in the Java Sea near Indonesia. The reason for the crash is still unknown, but some of the theories have to do with maintenance issues.  

In the article “Lion Air Crash Scenario wasn’t Covered in Boeing 737 MAX Manual, Pilot Unions Say” on NBC’s website (www.nbc.com) one theory for the crash is that the angle of attack sensors were faulty. These sensors are vital for having the aircraft fly at the right angle compared to air currents and in preventing a stall. If that was true, it would be a vital piece of information, as the manual for the plane does not list the dangers of faulty sensors, and the pilots would have needed more training to understand and resolve the issue. Only after this crash, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued guidance on the system malfunction. When this crash first happened, reporters had said that the plane that crashed was old and worn out when, in fact, this was a Boeing 737 MAX, which has only been built since May of 2017.  

Air Lion is a newer and upcoming airline company. Founded in 1999 by brothers Rudsi and Kusnan Kirana with its first flight in June of 2000, the company has only been around for 18 years, yet it already carries out more than 630 flights a day. The company is the biggest flight brand in Indonesia according to “Indonesia Domestic Airline Market: Rapid Growth, Rivalry Intensifies” on The Centre for Aviation’s (CAPA) website (www.centreforaviation.com). Lion Air has over 50% domestic market share, with the next highest domestic market share going to Garuda Group, another airline brand, with 33%. The third competitor has only 13% share. Air Lion’s competition is slowly fading, but this may change because of the crash. There have been many incidents where Air Lion officials say that they did not check with safety teams according to Lion Air’s page on Aviation Safety Network’s website (aviation-safety.net) 

In the recent event, in an article from the New York Times titled “Indonesia Plane Crash Leaves Experts Puzzled” (www.nytimes.com), Ony Soerjo Wibowo, the senior investigator of the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee, said, “We haven’t questioned the engineer or technicians from Sunday’s flight yet because we have very limited human resources.” In another article titled “Low-Cost Indonesian Airlines Keep Growing, Despite Troubling Record,” it is reported that there have been many incidents involving Air Lion’s safety being below par. In two separate incidents, pilots were arrested for possession of drugs. Danang Parikesit, a transportation expert and president of Indonesia Transportation Society, said in the article “Low-Cost Indonesian Airlines Keep Growing, Despite Troubling Record….Last I checked, we had less than 200 air safety inspectors for the whole country. You can imagine that with traffic increasing by 20 percent a year for the last five years, and you have less than 200 safety inspectors? What do you expect?” Parikesit says that the country’s focus should be on regulation, not accusation. He stated in the same article, “At the end of the day, it’s the regulator that allows the conditions in which the operators operate. We have already asked the Indonesian government to increase the capacity of safety inspections and the inspection programs, given that the growth of the airline industry in Indonesia is quite high.” In America, there are 30,000 FAA employees, of which 14,000 are air traffic controllers, and the other 16,000 are working on a project called NextGen, which is a transportation system whosed main goal is to increase the safety, efficiency, capability, predictability, and resiliency of American Aviation, “What is NextGen?” (faa.gov). 

In 2016, the United States FAA brought Indonesia from a Category 2 safety rating to a Category 1 safety rating, nearly 10 years after lowering it. Category 1 means that the airline company complies with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards, while as a category 2, the country lacked laws or regulations that were necessary to oversee air carriers that obeyed minimum international standards. This shows that the country has the absence of laws complying with minimum international standards, technical expertise, or human resources. As Indonesia continues to work on its air safety, Boeing will continue to produce and send planes overseas to corporations.