SEA OF TEARS9
Relatives await news at airport ALL 189 passengers and crew were feared dead after a jet crashed in the sea shortly after lift-off yesterday.
Ground control lost contact with Lion Air flight JT610 around 13 minutes after it set off from Indonesian capital Jakarta.
An official said: “I predict there are no survivors, based on body parts found so far.”
The pilot of the Boeing 737 – which was carrying 181 passengers, including two foreigners, one child and two babies – had asked to return to the airport shortly before the crash. It was heading north to the city of Pangkal Pinang.
It has been claimed the new jet, which only came into service in August, was taken in for repairs days before the tragedy.
A tug boat crew saw the plane slam into waters up to 100ft deep.
Images posted by the country’s disaster agency show items collected by search and rescue vessels, including a crushed
WHOSE NEW WIFE WAS ON JET
Section of fuselage from the plane smartphone, books, bags and headphones, plus parts of the aircraft’s fuselage.
Despite being told that no survivors were expected to be found, relatives of those on board gathered at a crisis centre at Jakarta’s Halim Perdanakusuma airport.
Murtado Kurniawan was married recently and his wife was on the plane, taking a trip for work.
He said: “I can’t live without her, I love her. The last thing I said to her was, ‘Be careful’.
“I always worry about her when she goes away. When I saw on TV that the plane had crashed, my whole body went weak.”
Sony Setiawan, an official in Indonesia’s finance ministry, told of how he had missed the doomed flight after getting stuck in traffic on his way to the airport.
He booked a later flight on a different airline and only learned of the crash when he landed.
Mr Setiawan said: Personal items found in the sea “I usually take JT610 – my friends and I always take this plane.
“The first time I heard I cried. I know that my friends were on that flight.”
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has ordered the National Commission for Transport Safety to start investigating the crash and Boeing said it was ready to provide technical assistance.
Lion Air chief executive Edward Sirait said the plane had suffered an unspecified “technical issue” during a previous flight but this had been “resolved”.
He said the airline operates 11 of the new Boeing 737 Max 8 planes but the others have not suffered a similar technical problem.
He added there were no plans to ground the fleet.
I can’t live without her, I love her. The last thing I said was,
‘Be careful’
MURTADO KURNIAWAN