Doomed Indonesian plane grounded for months due to Covid
Officials investigating last Saturday’s Boeing airliner crash in Indonesia are understood to be probing a possible link to the plane’s prolonged grounding during last year’s Covid-19 lockdowns.
The 27-year-old Boeing 737-500, which crashed into the sea off Jakarta with 62 people on board, spent nearly nine months out of service last year because of reduced flight timetables caused by the pandemic.
While officials have not yet commented on the cause of the crash, experts are speculating that it may be due to technical faults caused by the plane’s lack of regular use. ‘‘There’s a major problem starting to raise its head in terms of restoring these aircraft because while out of service for nine or 10 months, they need to be kept operating, otherwise they deteriorate,’’ said Hugh Ritchie, chief executive of Aviation Analysts International, an Australian air safety consulting firm.
The Indonesian plane did not fly between March 23 and December 19 last year, and was then used 132 times after it resumed operating, according to aviation data provider Flightradar24.
The exact cause of the crash is still unknown. On Tuesday, Indonesian navy divers recovered the black box flight data recorder from the plane, which abruptly plunged nearly 3000m just minutes after take-off. Officials believe the second black box – a cockpit voice recorder – is about 15m away from the flight data recorder.
Local officials have said the plane passed safety inspection checks on December 2 – including for engine corrosion – and was declared airworthy on December 14. Sriwijaya Air, the airline that operated the plane, also has a good record of service.
It is not unusual for 27-year-old aircraft to be in service in the region, nor for 132 flights to be made within weeks of being pressed back into service.
‘‘This is pretty standard for this airline and this part of the world,’’ a Flightradar24 spokesman said. – Telegraph Group