A safety manager who was commissioned to look into Lion Air’s operations between 2009 and 2011 paints a worrying picture of a “bad approach to safety” with shortcuts at all levels.
The former 737 pilot and now safety consultant, was brought in as Lion Air’s safety manager from 2009 to 2011 on orders from insurance companies, told AirlineRatings.com that the airline had “an average of one major engineering issue every three days, despite most of its fleet being, new.”
“You can buy all the latest-generation planes, but it will all be in vain if you don’t have systems in place that prioritize safety,” he said.
READ: Reports of Lion Air’s final moments raise questions
For instance, the pilot said pilots were working far too many hours.”
“What I saw was an airline from the very top down, whose motto was saving money and they spent the minimum on pilot training, salaries, and management,” he said.
“It’s easy to blame people but it was the system.”
And in an extraordinary claim, the former safety manager said the airline “sent pilots for training that did not even have their instrument rating” which indicated a lack of understanding by management of what was required.
The pilot added that if an aircraft had a broken part preventing it from being dispatched because it exceeds the Minimum Equipment List standard the engineers would simply swap the broken part with another aircraft. (The M.E.L. is an industry standard set by the manufacturer that outlines how many systems must be operating to dispatch an aircraft. Aircraft have multiple backups and aircraft can be dispatched with one not operating because of the redundancy built in.)
The safety manager also told Airlineratings.com that many aircraft incidents were covered up. “Many were kept quiet.”
“They also used to buy off air traffic controllers with free tickets to give Lion Air flights priority.”
However, since 2011, Lion Air has apparently taken stock and was able to obtain a lifting of a ban to fly to Europe and the USA and then was able to achieve the International Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit (IOSA).
But after the loss of Lion Air Flight 610 on October 29, many safety consultants are asking if anything has really changed.
While the investigation is still in its early stages, the facts that have emerged paint an alarmingly similar picture to the airline that the safety manager found in 2009.
Lion Air has denied the company cut corners and said the company’s twin priorities were growth and safety.
