Report: Off-duty pilot saved Lion Air plane 1 day before deadly crash

A Lion Air jet.
(Image credit: Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images)

One day before Lion Air Flight 610 crashed last October shortly after taking off from Jakarta, a different crew struggled to gain control of the plane as it entered a dive, people familiar with the incident told Bloomberg for a Tuesday report.

An off-duty pilot was sitting in the cockpit of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet on Oct. 28 when he realized the anti-stalling flight-control system was malfunctioning. He directed the crew to cut the power to the motor that was forcing the nose downward, Bloomberg reports, and the plane stabilized. Investigators said the same malfunction happened the next day, Oct. 29, causing the plane to crash into the Java Sea, killing all 189 people on board.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.