No-fly call after fatal crash
Lion Air flight crashes into ocean minutes after takeoff
AUSTRALIAN officials and contractors are being instructed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to avoid flying with Lion Airlines after a plane carrying 189 passengers crashed into the sea near Jakarta yesterday leaving no sign of life.
Search and rescue crews were last night scouring the Java Sea for survivors of flight JT 610, which plunged into the Java Sea just minutes after taking off from Jakarta Airport.
This most recent crash is yet another setback for the rapidly growing Indonesian aviation sector, which infamously had all airlines blacklisted from entering European airspace following a spate of incidents and reports of deteriorating safety standards during the 1990s. The EU removed the ban in 2016, but by 2013 Lion Airlines had landed itself in the headlines after a Bali-bound Boeing 737 crashed into the sea while attempting to land at Ngurah Rai Airport. In that instance, all 108 passengers and crew survived.
AN Indonesian Lion Air plane carrying 189 passengers and crew crashed into the sea yesterday, moments after it had asked to be allowed to return to Jakarta.
The jet vanished from radar just 13 minutes after taking off from the Indonesian capital.
Video footage showed a slick of fuel on the surface of the water. Disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho tweeted pictures of debris, including what appeared to be an emergency slide and various parts of a smashed mobile phone.
Search and Rescue Agency spokesman Yusuf Latif said authorities were still searching for the remains of the plane, which lost contact with air traffic control around 6.30am local time en route to Pangkal Pinang on the island of Bangka.
“The plane crashed into water about 30 to 40 metres deep,” he told AFP.
Sindu Rahayu, directorate general of Civil Aviation at the transport ministry, said the aircraft was carrying 181 passengers, including one child and two babies, and eight crew members.
“The plane had requested to return to base before finally disappearing from the radar,” he added in a statement.
The Flightradar website tracked the plane – which it said was a Boeing 737 – and showed it looping south on take-off and then heading north before the flight path ended abruptly over the Java Sea, not far from the coast.
Lion Air is one of Indonesia’s youngest and biggest airlines, flying to dozens of domestic and international destinations. In 2013, one of its Boeing 737-800 jets missed the runway while landing on Bali, crashing into the sea without causing any fatalities among the 108 people on board.
Indonesian airlines were barred in 2007 from flying to Europe because of safety concerns, though several were allowed to resume services in the following decade. The ban was lifted in June this year.