Boeing Faces Escalating Feud With Lion Air Over Plane Crash
December 19 2018 - 6:29AM
Dow Jones News
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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