Adam Air's safety record, like a number of other Indonesian airlines, had been heavily criticised. Pilots had reported repeated and deliberate breaches of international safety regulations due to the airline's attitude towards them and aircraft being flown in non-airworthy states for months at a time. They said that there had been such incidents as:
Requests to sign documents to allow an aircraft to fly, while not having the authority to do so or knowing that the plane was not airworthy (or both),
Flying one plane with a damaged door handle and another with a damaged window for months,
Being ordered to fly after exceeding the take-off limit of five times per pilot per day,
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Ignoring pilots' requests to abort takeoff, even though the planes were obviously unsafe.
The Associated Press quoted one Adam Air pilot as saying that "Every time you flew, you had to fight with the ground staff and the management about all the regulations you had to violate." They also said that if the airline's pilots confronted their seniors, they were grounded or docked pay.
Corruption
The Asia Times said it had spoken to "some well-placed local sources requesting anonymity", who claimed that Agung Laksono did not invest any of his own money into Adam Air, instead using money available to him through his official government position. Furthermore, Laksono's position gave him the unfair advantage of receiving heavily regulated licenses and airport landing rights. The same people claimed that the Ang family had no previous experience in the aviation industry. Adam Air's original advertising campaign contained statements considered by many to be direct lies, telling passengers to take to the skies with its "new Boeing 737-400s", despite the fact that its two Boeings, leased from GE Capital Aviation Services, were used and over fifteen years old. At the time Adam Air was founded, the 737 aircraft families (Boeing 737 Original (-200) and 737 Classics) making up Adam Air's fleet had been out-of-production for several years, long replaced by the 737 Next Generation family.
After an incident in which an Adam Air aircraft landed 525 km (326 mi) away from its intended destination, the pilots blamed a malfunctioning navigation system. The airline claimed the equipment to be in good working order, and had the pilots arrested on charges of endangering passenger safety. Immediately after the incident, the Directorate General of Air Communications (DGAC) sent instructions to Adam Air to repair the faulty system. The airline was then required to conduct a total of thirteen test flights with DGAC inspectors aboard before the aircraft could return to commercial service. Adam Air instead left behind a team from the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT), who they were supposed to transport to the site, and sent only their own engineers. According to Adam Air, they repaired the fault, and the aircraft was immediately returned to service without any inspection. Iksan Tatang, director general of air transportation, said the incident was "a serious violation", and promised a full investigation. However, no sign of the investigation's findings exists on the public record, and it is unclear if an investigation took place at all. Critics say Adam Air used its political connections to sidestep aviation authorities.
When asked by Tempo magazine what caused the fatal crash of Adam Air Flight 574 in January 2007, before Adam Air agreed (nine months later) to help find the wreckage, chief executive officer Suherman said: "It was a weather problem. Everything was okay when the plane took off, except for the X factor. We are not God." However, at that time, the Asia Times was already suggesting that because of corruption, the real cause of the crash might never be known.
Other legal issues
Large numbers of pilots joined the airline when it was founded in 2003, but most of them quit years later over safety concerns mostly after the crash of Flight 574.
On 10 January 2007 there was a report that Indonesian consumer and labour groups were planning to lodge a US$100 million suit, claiming the airline neglected safety in order to save money.
On 21 February 2007 it was reported that 13 Adam Air employees, as well as an employee of airport operator PT Angkasa Pura, working at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport had been arrested for fraudulent data manipulation. The scheme involved manipulating passenger data to show passengers as 'leaving the country'. This meant that they were automatically charged a duty of 30,000 Rupiah each, when in reality they owed none. The money was then split between fourteen staff members. A computer from the check-in desk, as well as passenger tickets and lists, were seized.
On 17 May 2007 Adam Air pilots decided to resign due to poor navigational systems with which they were forced to fly. The airline sued all of them since their contract length had not been fulfilled. A Liputan 6 article stated that Adam Air was not attempting to claim for damage caused by the pilots' public accusations of poor safety standards.
Incidents and accidents
In 2006, one aircraft skidded off a runway, and two others were operated despite known malfunctions related to landing gear.
Flight 782
On 11 February 2006, Adam Air Flight 782, a Boeing 737-300 registered as PK-KKE, lost navigational and communications systems 20 minutes into a flight from Jakarta to Makassar, Sulawesi. The aircraft was subsequently flown into a radar "black spot" and was lost for several hours, eventually making an emergency landing at Tambolaka Airport, Sumba (on a different island 481 kilometres (299 mi; 260 nmi) away from their intended destination, and southeast from their origin, instead of northeast). The pilot in that incident was fired. Adam Air broke multiple safety regulations, including removing an aircraft before it was due for inspection by aviation authorities.
Flight 574
On 1 January 2007, Adam Air Flight 574, a Boeing 737-400 with the registration PK-KKW (c/n 24070), crashed into the Makassar Strait near Polewali in Sulawesi on 1 January 2007. All 96 passengers and 6 crew on board were killed.
Air traffic controllers lost contact with the flight en route from Surabaya (SUB) to Manado (MDC). On January 10, parts of the aircraft's tail stabilizer were found 300 metres (980 ft) offshore. The flight recorders and suspected debris were located, but were not initially recovered due to a dispute between Adam Air and the Indonesian Government over who should pay recovery costs. Both recorders were retrieved after Adam Air agreed to pay for seven days of searching.
A 2009 episode of Mayday (Air Crash Investigation, Air Emergency) about Flight 574 stated that the official crash report had concluded the Inertial Reference System (IRS) had failed. This failure, which should not by itself have brought the plane down, caused the pilots to become preoccupied with trying to fix it. After changing the IRS from "Navigate" mode to "Attitude" mode, the pilots failed to manually fly the plane while the computer system recalibrated, a procedure that takes about 30 seconds. The failure to maintain straight and level flight during the recalibration caused the autopilot to completely disengage and cease compensating for the plane's tendency to roll to the right, which caused the nose of the plane to dip. In attempting to correct the pitch of the aircraft before levelling the wings, the pilot sent the aircraft into an unrecoverable downward spiral, leading to the plane suffering massive structural failure as it descended at nearly the speed of sound. The investigation disclosed that the accident aircraft, including the faulty IRS and several other systems, had been the subject of more than 40 pilot complaints, or "write ups" in the months prior to the crash.
Flight 172
On 21 February 2007, Adam Air Flight 172, a Boeing 737-300 aircraft flying from Jakarta to Surabaya with registration PK-KKV (c/n 27284), had a hard landing at Juanda International Airport. The incident caused the fuselage of the plane to crack and bend at the middle, with the tail of the plane drooping towards the ground. There were no reports of serious injuries from the incident. Subsequent flights to the airport were diverted to alternate airports. As a result, six Adam Air 737s were grounded awaiting safety checks, but five of these were then put back in regular service. Adam Air described this as "harsh punishment" for an accident it blamed on poor weather conditions, but Vice President Jusuf Kalla has said that all Boeing 737-300s should be checked.
Flight 292
On 10 March 2008, Adam Air Flight 292, a Boeing 737-400 registered as PK-KKT, flying from Jakarta to Batam, skidded 75 metres (246 ft; 82 yd) off the end of the runway while landing in Batam. All 171 passengers and 6 crew members survived, with two passengers treated for shock. The plane sustained damage to one wing and was ultimately written off by its lessor. This accident contributed to the airline's demise, just eight days later, and the formal revocation of its AOC three months later. The incident also illustrated that crew were not trained correctly on evacuation procedures. In particular, during the evacuation of this aircraft no slides were deployed to allow the passengers off the aircraft.
