The Indonesian plane, which crashed last week in the Sea of Java, had a defect in the speed index during its last four flights, which ended in tragedy, investigators said on Wednesday.
The Boeing 737 Max 8 crashed in the Java Sea just 13 minutes after it took off from Sukarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta on Oct. 29 and all 189 people on board were killed.
"It has had problems with the last four flights," said Norcahio Otomo, an investigator at the National Transport Safety Commission, at a press conference today.
"We're trying to figure out whether the fault is in the index or the measuring instrument, whether it is the computer system that has been corrupted or whether any part has been removed or replaced," he said.
Leon Air confirmed reports that the aircraft had recorded "unreliable" readings of altitude and speed during its flight from Bali to Jakarta on October 28.
But its chief executive, Edward Seret, said the problems had been fixed that night.
The head of the Indonesian Transport Safety Commission, Sorgento Lahjunjo, said the plane crashed into the sea very quickly and crashed.
"The engines reached the water at a high rate of rotation during the minute, so there was no defect in the engines," he said at the press conference.
The head of Indonesia's Transport Safety Commission announced today that it would issue a preliminary report on a Lyon Air crash last week within a month.