Lion Air crash search called off

Indonesia ends efforts to recover remains after two weeks

JAKARTA:

Indonesia called off the search for passengers of a Lion Air plane, almost two weeks after the jetliner plunged into the Java Sea killing 189 people on board.

Some 196 bags containing body parts have been recovered from under the water with 79 victims identified and handed over to their families for burial.

“Since yesterday afternoon until today we have not found any more victims and therefore I declare the search and rescue operation is over,” Muhammad Syaugi, head of the search and rescue agency, told reporters yesterday.

“We apologise to the public, especially the families of victims if during the operation we were not able to satisfy everybody,” he added.

Rescuers have also retrieved parts of the plane’s engines, wheels and seats from the sea. One diver died helping with the search.

Lion Air has begun paying US$102,058 (RM427,000) compensation money for each passenger to the grieving families.

Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee has retrieved one of the black boxes – the flight data recorder – and is still hunting for the cockpit voice recorder, which recorded the last conversation between the pilot and co-pilot before the crash. The doomed jet was a Boeing 737Max 8, one of the world’s newest and most advanced commercial passenger planes.

The government has ordered a check on all Boeing 737-Max 8 fleets and conducted a special audit on Lion Air management.

The transportation ministry has also removed several executives and technical staff from the airline to help with the accident investigation.