Traffic saves man from doomed Lion Air flight
JAKARTA: An Indonesian man has described how the city’s notorious traffic inadvertently saved his life yesterday after he arrived too late to catch the doomed Lion Air plane, which plunged into the sea minutes after taking off.
Sony Setiawan, a Finance Ministry official, had meant to be on board Lion Air Flight JT610, a journey he and his colleagues caught on a weekly basis.
But while his friends battled their way through Jakarta’s daily congestion to make the flight, Sony found himself stuck on a toll road for hours.
“I usually take (flight) JT610. My friends and I always take this plane,” Sony said.
“I don’t know why the traffic at the toll road was so bad. I usually arrive in Jakarta at 3am, but this morning, I arrived at the airport at 6.20am and I missed the flight.”
That gridlock likely saved Sony’s life as officials warned it was unlikely anyone would have survived such a crash.
But Sony said any gratitude he felt was tinged with the knowledge so many people, including six of his colleagues, were not so fortunate.
“The first time I heard about it, I cried,” he said. “I know my friends were on that flight.”
Sony, who is from Bandung in West Java, said he caught a second flight to Pangkal Pinang city and learned of the crash once he landed safely.
The call he made to his briefly stricken family was filled with emotion.
“My family was in shock and my mother cried, but I told them I was safe, so I just have to be grateful,” he said.
Some 189 people on board the plane when it vanished from radar just 13 minutes after taking off from the Indonesian capital, plunging into the Java Sea.
The Finance Ministry said around 20 of its employees were on the plane.
Indonesia’s search-and-rescue agency said it was “likely” all passengers and crew were killed in the accident, as it found body parts of some victims.
Jakarta is known for having some of Southeast Asia’s worst traffic congestion with lengthy tailbacks and hours-long delays a daily frustrating ritual for commuters.