[6] During the search, Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) used the available data from Flightradar24, and hypothesised that the plane's engines were still operating upon impact.

[8] On 10 November 2022, the NTSC published the final report of the investigation, concluding that the crash had been caused by a combination of a faulty autothrottle and pilot error.

[14] Between March and December 2020,[15] the aircraft was stored at Surabaya Juanda International Airport due to reduced demand for air travel during the coronavirus pandemic.

[18] Among the passengers were Mulyadi Tamsir, a politician from the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) and chairman of the Indonesian Muslim Student Association (PB HMI).

The pilots had just received an instruction from ATC to climb to 13,000 feet (4,000 m) when the aircraft's alarm activated, warning the crew about the 37 degree left bank.

First Officer Mamahit shouted to Captain Afwan regarding the bank angle, warning him that the aircraft had just entered an upset condition.

[34][35][36][37] Captain Afwan managed to nearly level the wings and raise the nose up to 0°,[10] : 46–49  but by then there was no more room for recovery as the altitude was too low and the aircraft was in overspeed condition.

[53] The Indonesian Navy deployed a number of vessels for the search and rescue operations, in addition to helicopters and KOPASKA (frogman) personnel.

[60] The Indonesian Navy pinpointed the exact coordinates of the crash site on 10 January,[61] and the flight data recorder was retrieved two days later.

[76][77][12] On 10 January, NTSC obtained raw data of the aircraft's flight path from radar and interviews with the air traffic controller.

[79] Weather data retrieved from the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency (BMKG) confirmed the presence of moderate to heavy rain during takeoff with chance of thunderstorms reported.

[85] The Federal Aviation Administration initially had issued an Airworthiness Directive to Boeing 737-500 operators concerning fatigue cracking on the left nacelle support overwing fitting flange fastener hole.

The investigation repeated the simulation session in NAM Training Center in Jakarta on 7 December 2021 and successfully recreated the accident flight.

[94] According to Tempo magazine, sources close to the investigation committee revealed that the aircraft involved in the accident had a recurring autothrottle problem for at least a month.

Several engineers decided to troubleshoot the system in accordance with the written manual, while a majority of them tried to fix the problems by simply cleaning the electrical connector of the autothrottle components.

The connection between the servo motor and the thrust levers was suspected as the source of this problem, indicating a possible weak linkage between both components.

The FDR recording showed that the CTSM system activated while the aircraft was diving towards the sea, instead of earlier during the climb, when the asymmetry had appeared for the first time.

[10]: 100–102 The investigation eventually stated that the most plausible cause of the delayed activation of the CTSM was due to the low signal value that had been emitted by the spoiler position sensor, specifically on the right side.

This was evidenced by the timing of the authothrottle disengagement, which happened immediately after Captain Afwan commanded a bank angle over 19 degrees, the maximum allowable input for the autopilot.

On that flight, the pilot also made an input greater than the allowed maximum bank angle that the autopilot could command, causing the CTSM to activate and disconnect the autothrottle.

[10]: 121 Even though the aircraft had difficulties with the autothrottle system, this alone was not severe enough to cause the crash, as pilots are supposed to have been trained to handle these kinds of situations.

Captain Afwan eventually made the situation worse by pulling the nose up even though the wings were not levelled, causing the aircraft to dive towards the ocean with a rate of descent of at least 45,000 ft per minute.

In one of the training sessions, the trainee caused the aircraft to enter an accelerated stall condition, due to improper action during recovery.

Sriwijaya Air had already put a system in place to make sure that maintenance practices would be reviewed and monitored regularly to prevent recurring defects.

The involved aircraft, however, suffered the exact same defects for nearly eight years, proving that there was lack of supervision of maintenance practices within Sriwijaya Air.

The incident was regarded by the NTSC as serious, but both pilots failed to report it and did not write up the technical difficulties during the flight in the maintenance logbook.

[10]: 139 The investigation concluded that there had been inadequate implementation and multiple issues related to safety management in Sriwijaya Air, which contributed to the crash of Flight 182.

[10] In the immediate aftermath of the accident, the state's insurance company Jasa Raharja announced that it would compensate the relatives of the passengers and crew members aboard Flight 182.

Prior to the publication of the interim report, the airline included a more thorough UPRT program in the pilot training syllabus and disseminated the Boeing Flight Operation Technical Bulletin regarding UPRT, improved recurrent engineer training, revised the current Flight Data Analysis system, and performed further evaluations in other areas that had been deemed insufficient by investigators.

The task force was assigned the creation of guidance, regulations, and implementation of UPRT throughout Indonesia, including consultations with internationally recognized experts on the matter.