New podcasts FACTS are telling a very different story on the tragic Lion Air MAX crash of late 2018. The podcast by the Flight Safety Detectives former NTSB crash investigators Greg Feith and John Goglia are extraordinary in their detail and very sobering and highlight multiple failures of maintenance and serious pilot deficiencies. They are a MUST LISTEN for anyone interested in air safety.  Listen to podcasts 9 and 10. Feith and Goglia are considered among the most respected safety analysts in the industry. Last month Feith was highly critical of the Indonesian NTSC report and the primary conclusion that the MCAS software caused the crash of LionAir Flight 610 in October last year. READ: Jetstar pilots failed to put the landing gear down Feith, said the Indonesian NTSC 322-page report, issued in October, into the LionAir 737MAX tragedy presents an in-depth account of the “factual” information developed during the course of the investigation. However, Feith said of the report, “there are so many flaws in logic, failures to properly analyze the facts, and failures to hold persons or organizations accountable and much more. They (NTSC) obviously reverse-engineered the “facts” to support their preconceived conclusions that the airplane and MCAS are to blame.”  

“The NTSC stated the pilots, especially the First Officer, had significant training deficiencies and lacked basic flying skills. These same deficiencies occurred during the accident flight. These two pilots had no business being in the cockpit and the airplane should not have been operated because of all the maintenance issues that began at the beginning of October, and was not corrected, making the airplane unairworthy.” Feith questions the NTSC’s silence regarding “the oversight by the Indonesian DGCA and the accountability of LionAir, especially after the airline had several serious incidents and accidents in the past 6 years. Mr Feith’s views were supported by a well-respected Airbus training captain, who told AirlineRatings.com the first officer “could not fly”. “The report on the FO is an eye-opener as he is constantly very poor in all phases of operating an aircraft,” the training captain said. “The report indicates a lot of additional training in standard operating procedures and emergencies and this was repeated on almost every subsequent training session but the problems were never resolved. “There is a continual mention of a very poor instrument scan which was also never resolved. Even more deeply troubling was that, according to the pilot reports, the first officer didn’t understand and had difficulty handling aerodynamic stalls, a fundamental of flying." “That FO could not fly and I wonder why the Lion Air trainers didn’t cull him as his performance at proficiency checks are all fail items.”