Indian pilot, 188 others die in Indonesian plane crash
NEW DELHI/JAKARTA: Captain Bhavye Suneja, a 31-year-old Indian with 6,000 hours of flying experience, was at the controls of the Lion Air jet that crashed into the sea with 189 people on board after a sudden and sharp dive on Monday, just minutes after taking off from Jakarta.
Assisted by co-pilot Harvino, who went by only one name, Suneja was flying the nearly new Boeing 737 MAX 8 when it lost contact with ground officials, 13 minutes after departing from the Indonesian capital.
From Delhi’s Mayur Vihar, Suneja studied at the Ahlcon Public School till 2005. Neighbours said his family was expecting Suneja home this Diwali.
While the airline captain’s immediate family refused to share any information, his cousin Kapish Gandhi spoke to The Guardian about the incident.
He said Suneja’s parents learned of the disaster early in the morning and were booked to fly to Jakarta the same night. “He loved his job, he was very much interested in it,” the report quoted Gandhi as saying. “We saw it on television this morning and didn’t know whether to believe it,” he added. “We are all speechless.”
Lion Air Flight JT 610 was flying north from Jakarta to the city of Pangkal Pinang on the island of Bangka when it went down in the Java Sea. The National Search and Rescue Agency said that a tugboat crew saw the plane crash in Karawang Bay northeast of Jakarta and that skies were clear.
By Monday afternoon, rescuers said it was unlikely that survivors would be found. “I suspect all the passengers are dead,” said Marine Brig. Gen. Bambang Suryo, director of operations for the search and rescue agency.