The 11 minutes that Boeing won't forget

“Where is the...?” the copilot said, according to a partial transcript contained in a 322-page report on the jet’s doomed flight issued by Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee.

The pilots were never told about the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System that sent their plane bobbing through the air and that they were faced with a confusing barrage of failures.

As they prepared the plane for takeoff last Oct. 28, the copilot said he’d been awakened at 4 a.m. and called in to make the flight. The captain complained that he had the flu, coughing repeatedly. During the emergency, they failed to communicate, were repeatedly unable to keep the plane pointed in the proper direction and the copilot -- who took control just before the final high-speed dive -- showed poor manual flying skills.

The captain was a 31-year-old Indian, Bhavye Suneja, who had more than 6,000 hours of experience, including 5,176 hours on the 737. The first officer, Harvino, was a 41-year-old Indonesian who had been with Lion Air since 2011.

The emergency they faced on Flight 610 began as soon as the plane lifted off. Two minutes into the flight, the emergency took a confusing turn.

Because they never declared an emergency, an air traffic controller repeatedly radioed them distracting instructions to turn, but the pilots couldn’t hold their course. The plane entered a steep dive, hitting speeds of about 500 miles per hour. A stern mechanical voice said “Terrain, terrain,” warning that they were diving toward the Java Sea. Eleven minutes and 22 seconds after they began to lift off, the cockpit recording ended.