A preliminary report has found technical problems had been reported on previous flights.

The data from the so-called black box is consistent with the theory that investigators have been most focused on: that a computerized system Boeing installed on its latest generation of 737 to prevent the plane's nose from getting too high and causing a stall instead forced the nose down because of incorrect information it was receiving from sensors on the fuselage.

Lion Air Flight JT610 plunged into the sea less than half an hour after taking off on a routine flight to Pangkal Pinang city.

"It's all consistent with the hypothesis of this problem with the MCAS system", said R. John Hansman Jr., a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and director of the global center for air transportation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

As soon as the October 28 flight from Bali to Jakarta lifted off, a device known as a "stick shaker" - which is created to alert pilots to an imminent aerodynamic stall - activated with its unmistakable vibrations on the control column and loud thumping noise.

Indonesian regulators were urged after previous accidents to improve their oversight of maintenance and pilot training.

The pilots of the Boeing 737 that crashed off Indonesia last month struggled 26 times to stop the flight computer pulling the plane down after a recurring problem with crucial monitoring instruments.

That's one of the findings in a preliminary report released today by Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee. That black box's pings are expected to die within the next few days. The data was subsequently posted and analyzed in a blog post by Peter Lemme, a satellite communications expert and former Boeing engineer.

But each time, the problem was indicated as rectified and the plane cleared to fly, Mr Nurcahyo said at a press conference on the committee's preliminary report on the doomed flight.

The investigation into the crash is in its early stages and is hampered by the lack of evidence from the cockpit voice recorder, which remains lost on the seabed.

It also told the airline to improve its documentation, pointing out that while there were six flight attendants on the flight, Lion Air's record showed that there were only five on board.

"Had they fixed the airplane, we would not have had the accident", he said.

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The pilots on Lion Air Flight 610 appear to have forcefully pulled back on their control columns to no avail, before the final dive, according to the information from the flight data recorder.

The 737 Max is a new version of Boeing's original 737 and has become its fastest selling plane. Tajer and others said they were aware of no earlier notice of the change in how 737 MAX planes operate compared with their predecessors.

Pilots at American Airlines and Southwest Airlines complained this month that they had not been given all information about the new system on the MAX. Boeing has said the problem could have been addressed using existing emergency procedures and insists 737 Max planes are safe, Bloomberg reports.

In a statement, Boeing played up the possibility of pilot error. Those switches are for electrically controlling the trim - the angle of the stabilizers on the plane's tail. Articles appear on euronews.com for a limited time. Both can move the nose up and down.

Boeing issued a bulletin on November 6 that described how 737 MAX pilots should override the automated system suspected of causing the Lion Air crash.

More than 200 MAX jets have been delivered to airlines around the world.

Angle-of-attack sensors are crucial in determining if a plane is stalling.

Even though the angle-of-attack sensor seems to be at the center of the confusing alarms and the final dive before the crash, the pilots on the October 28 flight showed that it could be overcome.

The pilots also faced a difference between left and right angle of attack readings of about 20 degrees that again continued throughout the flight.

New details of Flight JT610's final moments were also included in the report.

Plane crashes rarely can be blamed on a single, catastrophic malfunction.

He said investigators were trying to understand what maintenance workers had done to try to fix the problems and if there were other steps that should have been taken. Lion Air indicates it will comply with those recommendations. Government investigators have accused the carrier of ignoring their commands to ground planes with proven problems.