Doomed Lion Air Boeing jet had airspeed failure on prior flight

The Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea off Indonesia earlier this week had experienced problems with the sensors used to calculate altitude and speed on its previous flight, an issue that could help explain why the plane dove into the water. Pilots on the nearly new Boeing 737 Max 8 reported the issue after flying from Denpasar to Jakarta the night before the accident, A Lion Air spokesman said Wednesday. The instruments were checked by maintenance workers overnight and the plane was cleared to fly, he said. Erroneous sensors could be an explanation for the flight track data, said one expert. But he and others cautioned that it’s too soon to say what happened on the Lion Air flight and some of the flight data may suggest some other cause. <br/>