BA Boeing Co

By Ben Otto in Jakarta, Indonesia and Andrew Tangel in Chicago 

Boeing Co. is facing unusually public criticism from a major customer, Lion Air, as the two try to minimize fallout from a fatal crash.

Accident investigators are months away from determining the precise cause of the Oct. 29 crash that killed 189 people when the new Boeing 737 MAX 8 plunged into the Java Sea. Lion Air on Monday said it had reached a deal with a Dutch marine company to resume searching for the plane's cockpit voice recorder.

Initial information pointing to potential maintenance, operation and design issues, however, has escalated a spat that exceeds typically private finger-pointing following a major airliner accident.

"I'm very disappointed with the way Boeing has behaved," Lion Air co-founder Rusdi Kirana said in a recent interview.

He has openly pondered whether to cancel Lion Air's orders for more than 200 planes, nearly all of them 737 MAXs, in a deal valued at more than $20 billion based on list prices. It is unclear how feasible that action would be but it is a stark turnaround from 2011 when he called the plane "the future of Lion Air," at an event in Bali attended by then-President Obama.

When investigators released an interim report about a month after the crash, Boeing drew attention to possible maintenance deficiencies at the Indonesian budget carrier, noting the report indicates maintenance performed in the days before the fatal flight failed to fix problems with the jet. Boeing also highlighted that the crew on the jet's penultimate flight faced similar issues, but managed to successfully complete their flight.

"The logs indicate that various maintenance procedures were performed, but issues related to airspeed and altitude continued," Boeing said at the time.

That irked the airline, Mr. Kirana said in the interview. "You can't blame your operator," he said. "We are partners--we are not enemies."

Boeing has called Lion Air a valued customer and said it was working to fully understand what led to the crash.

Accident investigators, in the interim report, said the crew battled inaccurate sensor information, a cascade of warnings, and an automatic flight-control system that repeatedly pushed down the nose of the plane during the 11 minutes from takeoff until the crash. Lion Air and other pilots have said they weren't aware of the new automated system that activated on the flight. Investigators believe that system may have misfired, and since the crash Boeing has been the subject of criticism for omitting details about it from manuals and training.

"The problem is not the maintenance," Mr. Kirana said. "The problem is not in the operation. The problem is that Boeing didn't make a proper manual."

The Chicago-based plane maker has emphasized that its manuals already include a procedure that turns off the stall-prevention system, known by its acronym MCAS, and prevents it from automatically pushing the plane's nose down. Boeing has said it followed its usual process for determining what information was critical to include in manuals and training.

For Lion Air, abandoning the deal may not be straightforward. Rival plane maker Airbus SE is sold out for years, so walking away from the MAX deal could derail the carrier's growth plans. Some analysts have wondered whether the threat may be part of a negotiating posture.

Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg told CNBC in a Dec. 6 interview: "These are not things that can be exclusively canceled by either side."

Fatal airline crashes often provoke behind-the-scenes clashes involving plane makers, airlines and

sometimes national governments trying to protect prestige and minimize legal exposure. But rarely do they turn into bitter, public broadsides.

In November 2001, after an Airbus A300 plunged into a suburban New York City neighborhood shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, American Airlines and Airbus squared off over the sequence of events. The accident, which killed 265 people, raised questions about aircraft design and aviator training.

Airbus launched a public-relations blitz targeting part of American's flight-training program as misguided. The airline, for its part, criticized Airbus for failing to properly alert pilots before the crash about structural limits of the A300's vertical stabilizer. U.S. investigators ultimately determined arguments of both sides had merit.

In December 2014, 162 people died when an AirAsia Airbus A320 crashed into waters off the island of Borneo after experiencing cascading electrical and rudder-system problems. The pilots reset a circuit breaker in an ill-fated attempt to resolve the issues, a move that Airbus safety experts later said was considered hazardous and wasn't part of any Airbus-authorized training program. AirAsia head Tony Fernandes tweeted: "There is much to be learned here for AirAsia, the manufacturer and the aviation industry."

Andy Pasztor in Los Angeles contributed to this article.

Write to Ben Otto at ben.otto@wsj.com and Andrew Tangel at Andrew.Tangel@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 19, 2018 06:14 ET (11:14 GMT)

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