Divers look for fuselage

JAKARTA: Indonesian search and rescue workers believe they have found the fuselage of a Lion Air passenger jet that crashed with 189 people on board, and are also trying to confirm the origin of an underwater ‘‘ping’’ signal, officials said yesterdayy.

Ground staff lost touch with flight JT610 of Indonesian budget airline Lion Air 13 minutes after the Boeing 737 MAX 8 took off on Monday from Jakarta, on its way to the tinmining town of Pangkal Pinang. There were no survivors. Indonesia’s military chief said he believed the plane had been located, and a transport safety official said divers would be sent to confirm the origin of a ‘‘ping’’ signal picked up by a search and rescue team yesterday.

‘‘We strongly believe that we have found a part of the fuselage,’’ armed forces chief Hadi Tjahjanto told broadcaster TVOne.

Speaking on board the navy ship KRI Rigel, navy official Colonel Haris Djoko Nugroho told broadcaster TVOne that a 22mlong object had been found in waters about 32m deep and sonar was being used to identify it.

Divers would also be sent to check, he said.

Rigel has been searching in an area about five nautical miles from where the aircraft lost contact.

The plane’s black boxes, as the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder are known, should help explain why the almostnew jet went down minutes after takeoff.

Although it is now almost certain everyone on the plane died, relatives are desperate to find traces of their loved ones. Only body parts and debris have been found.

Investigators are looking into why the pilot of the downed aircraft had asked to return to base shortly after takeoff, a request ground control officials had granted although the flight crashed soon after.

An official of the national transport safety panel has said the plane had technical problems on its previous flight on Sunday, from the city of Denpasar on the resort island of Bali, including an issue over ‘‘unreliable airspeed’’.

The accident is the first to be reported involving the widely sold Boeing 737 MAX, an updated, more fuelefficient version of the manufacturer’s singleaisle jet.

Privately owned Lion Air, founded in 1999, said the aircraft, had been in operation since August and was airworthy, with its pilot and copilot having 11,000 hours of flying time between them.

The airline planned to meet a team from Boeing to discuss the fate of its 737 MAX 8 plane.

‘‘We have many questions for them,’’ Lion Air Director Daniel Putut told reporters.

‘‘This was a new plane.’’ — Reuters