JAKARTA, Indonesia – Investigators announced on Monday that its speedometer anemometer was not working well on its last four flights, investigators said Monday, just hours after relatives of grieving victims clashed with the airline's co-founder. of a meeting organized by officials.

National Transportation Safety Committee Chairman Soerjanto Tjahjono said the problem was similar on all four flights, including the fatal flight of 29 October, in which the plane plunged into the Java Sea. after taking off from Jakarta, killing 189 people on board.

The erratic speed and altitude on the previous flight of the aircraft, between Denpasar (Bali) and Jakarta, have been widely reported. "When we opened the black box, the technical problem was actually the speed or speed of the plane," Tjahjono said at a press conference.

"The data from the black box showed that two flights before Denpasar-Jakarta also met the same problem," he said. "In the black box, four flights have encountered problems with the speedometer."

Indonesian investigators, the aircraft builder, Boeing, and the US National Transportation Safety Board are preparing a more specific inspection of the Boeing 737 MAX 8s related to the problem of airspeed, said Tjahjono.

"If there are urgent results to deliver, we will pass them on to the operators and the manufacturer," he said.

Air Lion said that a technical problem with the jet had been corrected after problems with the flight Bali – Jakarta.

Investigator Nurcahyo Utomo stated that investigators should review maintenance records, including reported problems, repairs, including component replacement, and how repairs were tested before the aircraft, aged 2 months, is not seaworthy.

"We are currently researching the cause of the problem," he said. "If the problem came from his indicator, his measuring device or his sensor, or a problem related to his computer. That's what we do not know yet and we'll find out, "he said.

At the meeting with the family members, Tjahjono stated that the information downloaded from the jet flight data recorder was consistent with information that the speed and altitude of the aircraft was irregular after take-off of his final flight. Researchers are still trying to locate the voice recorder in the cockpit.

Rusdi Kirana, co-founder of Lion Air, was not invited to speak by the Minister of Transport, Budi Karya Sumadi, who facilitated the meeting between parents and officials who oversee the investigation of research and accidents.

But he got up and bowed his head after angry and distraught family members demanded that Kirana, who along with his brother Kusnan Kirana had founded Lion Air in 1999, identify himself.

"Lion Air failed," said a man who introduced himself as the father of passenger Shandy Johan Ramadhan, a district attorney on the island where the flight was heading.

"I want Mr Rusdi Kirana and his team to be attentive," he said. "Since the time of the crisis, Lion Air has never contacted me. We lost our child, but Lion Air showed us no empathy. "

After the meeting, Kirana left hurriedly, avoiding questions from reporters.

Many families face an awful wait for missing parents to be identified. Police medical experts received nearly 140 body bags and identified 14 victims.

Relatives asked why the plane was allowed to fly after problems on its Bali-Jakarta flight on October 28, which included a quick descent after taking off its terrorized passengers.

"Lion Air said that the problem had been solved.Is it true that the problem was solved?" Asked Bambang Sukandar, whose son was on the plane. "Otherwise, the technicians in charge must be responsible," he said. "The law is absolute because they said the plane had been allowed to take off again. The law requires that these poor technicians be treated in order to prevent the occurrence of aircraft accidents in Indonesia. "

Tjahjono stated that the large amount of small debris and the relatively small area in which they were found showed that the plane had hit the water at a very high speed.

"The plane was intact when it plunged into the sea, it did not explode in the air, and the engine of the plane was running when it hit the water at it is marked by the loss of all the blades of the turbine, "he said. .

The Lion Air crash is the biggest air disaster in Indonesia since 1997, when 234 people died in a Garuda flight near Medan. In December 2014, an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore sank into the sea, leaving 162 people dead.

Lion Air is one of the youngest airlines in Indonesia, but has grown rapidly, serving dozens of domestic and international destinations. It has developed aggressively in Southeast Asia, a rapidly growing region of more than 600 million inhabitants.

More: The pilot of the previous flight Lion Air asked to return to the airport a day before the fatal accident

More: Indonesian researchers recover black box from destroyed Lion Air plane, authorities say

More: Previous Lion Air plane passengers "began to panic and vomit"

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