Looking back on Sriwijaya Air Flight 182

Sriwijaya Air flight 182 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Jakarta-Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK/WIII) to Pontianak-Supadio Airport (PNK/WIOO). Five minutes after departing from Soekarno–Hatta International Airport on the 9th of January 2021, the Boeing 737-500 experienced an issue and crashed into the Java Sea off the Thousand Islands, killing all 62 people on board. A search of the area recovered wreckage, human remains, and items of clothing. The flight data recorder (FDR) was recovered on the 12th of January, and the data storage module of the cockpit voice recorder was recovered on the 30th of March. 

During the search, Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) used the available data from Flightradar24 and hypothesized that the plane's engines were still operating upon impact. It was known that the autothrottle on this aircraft had malfunctioned a few days earlier, and one line of investigation was whether this might have contributed to the accident.

A preliminary report released on the 10th of February 2021 suggested problems with the plane's autothrottle; the thrust lever for the left engine reduced thrust as the aircraft climbed, while the thrust lever for the right engine remained fixed. On the 10th of November 2022, the NTSC published the final report of the investigation, concluding that the crash had been caused by a combination of a faulty autothrottle and pilot error.

Flight 182 is the third deadliest accident involving a Boeing 737-500 after Aeroflot Flight 821 and Asiana Airlines Flight 733 and was the deadliest plane crash in 2021.

Airline Information:

Aircraft: Sriwijaya Air

Code: SJ/SJY

Aircraft: Boeing 737-524

Registration: PK-CLC

Serial Number: 27323

Engines: CFMI CFM56-3C1

First Flew: 13/05/1994

Age: 27 Years