Lion Air crash: Victim's family sues Boeing over faulty aircraft design

The family of Rio Nanda Putrama, who is feared to have been killed in the Lion Air Flight 610 crash last month, has filed a lawsuit against Boeing for its "faulty and unsafe design".

The lawsuit filed on Thursday stresses upon a new safety feature which can cause the 737 Max 8 aircraft to "auto-dive" in certain situations. It claims that the change was made in a gradual shift from previous Boeing 737 designs and that the American aviation company had failed to inform the change, CNN reported.

"At no relevant time prior to the crash did Boeing adequately warn Lion Air or its pilots of unsafe conditions caused by the new 'auto-diving' design," the plea said.

The incident took place when Putrama was off to Pangkal Pinang in Indonesia to get married, the lawyers said.

Earlier on Wednesday, a top Lion Air official alleged that the company failed to warn pilots about the potential risks of the new safety feature connected to the crash. The official said that the manual did not intimate the pilots that the plane's stall-prevention system could automatically trigger a response in emergency situations, including the lowering of the aircraft's nose.

Last week, Indonesian authorities informed that they have stopped searching for the victims of the aircraft. However, they added that they will keep looking for the aircraft's second black box and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR). The first black box of the aircraft was discovered on November 1.

Investigators of the Lion Air Flight 610 previously confirmed that the airspeed indicator of the plane had malfunctioned during its last four flights. The fault was discovered after analysing the flight data recorder (FDR) of the plane which plunged into the Java Sea minutes after taking off from Jakarta on October 29 with 189 people on board. According to officials, all passengers were feared killed in the crash.