Indonesia says Lion Air jet not airworthy on flight before crash

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian investigators said on Wednesday a Lion Air Boeing 737 jet that plunged into the sea, killing 189 people onboard, was not airworthy on a flight the day before it crashed on Oct. 29.

The Oct. 28 flight from Bali to Jakarta had experienced similar technical issues to the doomed flight the next day from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang, said Nurcahyo Utomo, head of Indonesia's national transport safety committee (KNKT).

The pilot of the Oct. 28 flight chose to press on to Jakarta after shutting down the plane's anti-stall system, Utomo said.

"This is the basis of our recommendation to Lion Air. In our view, the plane was not airworthy," he told a news conference in Jakarta.

(Reporting by Cindy Silviana and Fergus Jensen; Writing by Gayatri Suroyo; Editing by Ed Davies and Darren Schuettler)