Indonesia plane crashes into sea; 189 feared dead

Rescue officers collect the debris and passengers’ personal items from the Lion Air JT610 that crashed into the sea off Karawang of West Java province at the Tanjung Priok port, Jakarta, Indonesia, yesterday. SD-Agencies

Indonesia's search and rescue agency said yesterday there are likely no survivors from the Lion Air passenger flight that crashed into the sea north of Java Island 13 minutes after takeoff.

Rescue workers had retrieved six bodies by press time yesterday.

The Lion Air flight JT610 had been carrying 189 people, including one child and two infants, when it disappeared from radar during a short flight from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang on the Indonesian island of Bangka, according to Basarnas, Indonesia’s national search and rescue agency.

The plane, a new Boeing 737 MAX 8, was carrying 181 passengers, as well as six cabin crew members and two pilots.

Rescue workers had found debris appearing to be the plane’s tail. The main wreckage had still not been located.

Search and rescue teams were working against high waves and strong currents, in an area spanning 150 nautical miles. Underwater robots were being used in the search effort.

The flight made a request to air traffic control to return to base about 12 miles (19 kilometers) out from takeoff, but did not indicate there was an emergency, Yohanes Sirait, spokesman for AirNav Indonesia, the agency that oversees air traffic navigation, said.

The spokesman added that the aircraft would have been given priority landing upon such a request, but that air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane shortly after. The plane had not turned back, according to the radar.

The plane had reported problems the night before on a flight from Denpasar to Jakarta, Lion Air’s CEO Edward Sirait told local media TV1.

Sirait said engineers had checked and repaired the problem and reported that the plane was ready to fly.

The captain of the plane, Bhavye Suneja, an Indian national, had more than 6,000 flight hours, and his co-pilot, named Harvino, had logged more than 5,000, according to a statement posted by Lion Air.

Speaking to reporters at the carrier’s headquarters in Jakarta, Sirait said the plane was “airworthy” and that the pilot had carried out all preflight inspections according to procedure. He added that the pilots had passed mandatory drug screening.

The plane took off from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, greater Jakarta, at 6:21 a.m. local time, and had been due to land at around 7:30 a.m. in Pangkal Pinan, the largest city on Bangka.

Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said there were 20 ministry officials on board, who were returning to their posts in Pangkal Pinang after spending the weekend with their families in Jakarta for a public holiday.

Lion Air is one of Indonesia’s youngest and biggest airlines, flying to dozens of domestic and international destinations.

The low-cost airline has been involved in a number of incidents.

Last year, one of its Boeing jets collided with a Wings Air plane as it landed at the Kualanamu airport on the island of Sumatra, although no one was injured.

In May 2016, two Lion Air planes collided at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta airport.

In 2013, a Lion Air jet with a rookie pilot at the controls undershot the runway and crashed into the sea in Bali, splitting the plane in two. Several people were injured in the crash, although no one was killed.