Haunting last words of First Officer on doomed Lion Air Boeing 737 as it plummeted down
The last words of the first officer onboard the doomed Indonesian low-cost airline, Lion Air, flight were ‘Allahu Akbar' (God is Great), while the Indian-born Captain was silent.
The last words of the First Officer onboard the doomed Indonesian airline, Lion Air flight were ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is Great), while the Indian-born Captain was silent.
The common Arabic phrase is used to express both excitement and distress. The words were revealed in the cockpit voice recording, recovered from the wreckage.
The jet crashed into the Java Sea only 13 minutes after taking off from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Jakarta killing all 189 onboard.
That was not before the First Officer and the Captain had exhausted every avenue to try to stop the aircraft from plummeting downwards.
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They spent the last few minutes frantically scouring the handbook to find the possible cause. According to a report, the First Officer reported a “flight control problem” to air traffic control two minutes after take off.
The jet had warned them it was in a stall and pushed the nose down in response. This continued for nine minutes.
The Captain tried to right the plane but the computer, was still sending a stall issue alert.
According to the recording, the pilots appeared to not know the trim was moving down. They were focused on the speed and altitude.
“That was the only thing they talked about it”, a source revealed.
The pilots remained calm for most of the flight. Towards the end of the flight, the Captain who was only 31 years old, asked the First Officer to fly while he continued to find a solution.
The indicator that showed the problem only appeared on the Captain’s display and not the First Officer’s.
It was later revealed that an off-duty pilot flying in the same plane a day earlier had helped the crew sort out the same issue. He told them how to disable the malfunctioning flight control system and save the flight from the same tragic fate.
They apparently solved it by running through three checklists. Sadly, they did not pass on all the information regarding all the problems to the next crew, the report said.
The plane then hit the water, killing all 189 onboard.
