Lawsuit over January crash of Boeing 737 alleges autothrottle malfunction By Dominic Gates, The Seattle Times
Published: April 15, 2021, 6:10pm
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SEATTLE A lawsuit filed Thursday in Seattle against Boeing alleges that a malfunctioning autothrottle system on an older 737 led to the crash of Sriwijaya Air Flight SJ182 in Indonesia in January, killing all 62 people on board.
The suit, filed in King County Superior Court on behalf of 13 families of crash victims, cites a list of previous incidents involving malfunctions of the 737 autothrottle system, arguing that this history suggests the system should have been redesigned.
“Specifically, the automatic throttle can stick and thereby cause significant differences in power between engines, resulting in a loss of control of the aircraft,” the lawsuit states. The plaintiffs further allege that “Boeing did not provide adequate warnings and instructions about how to respond to a failure in the automatic throt
Boeing is being hit with a $2.5 billion penalty from the U.S. Justice Department for deceiving the FAA about an automated flight system in the 737-MAX.