SEATTLE - A Seattle law firm representing family members of victims killed when a Boeing 737-500 crashed in the Java Sea in January has filed a lawsuit against the airline manufacturer.
On Jan. 9, 2021, a Boeing 737-524 was flying from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Pontianak, Indonesia, when it crashed five minutes after departing from the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.
None of the 62 people on board survived. It's unknown what caused the plane to crash, but early investigations reveal it may have had something to do with an auto-throttle system.
On March 23, 2020, the 26-year-old Boeing plane was parked due to the coronavirus pandemic. Hundreds of other 737 planes around the world were parked as well, which created an unprecedented challenge for maintenance, Seattle firm Herrmann Law Group said in a news release.
"This is a major public safety issue. As the manufacturer of the plane, Boeing has an ongoing duty to warn airlines and instruct airlines to help them keep the planes safe. In this instance, you have at least two problems where Boeing failed to give adequate warnings and instructions. Number one, the parking of the planes during this pandemic and number two, the repeated problems with the auto throttle," said Mark Lindquist, lead attorney on the case for the Herrmann Law Group.
The auto-throttle system in the 737-500 planes is different from the now-famed MCAS system in the 737 MAX jets, which was blamed for two deadly crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia and forced the grounding of MAX jets worldwide.
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