Body parts found as plane crashes in sea

Indonesian search teams Tuesday recovered more remains at the site of a crashed Lion Air jet that plunged into the sea with 189 people aboard, as a report said it had suffered an instrument malfunction the day before.

The Boeing-737 MAX, which went into service just months ago, crashed into the Java Sea moments after it had asked to return to Jakarta on Monday.

Flight JT 610 sped up as it suddenly lost altitude and then vanished from radar 12 minutes after take-off, with authorities saying witnesses saw the jet plunge into the water.

The accident has resurrected concerns about the patchy safety record of Indonesia’s aviation industry.

Search teams have filled ten body bags with limbs and other human remains, Muhammad Syaugi, chief of the Indonesian national search and rescue agency told Metro TV.

The parts were taken for identification and DNA testing at a Jakarta police hospital, where distraught relatives gathered, including Hari Setiyono whose son-in-law was on the doomed plane.

“My daughter has no husband, my grandchild no longer has a father,” Setiyono told reporters.

The remains of a baby were among those found, according to national deputy police chief Ari Dono Sukmanto.

Another 14 bags filled with debris have also been collected, including shoes, items of clothing and a wallet.

Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) said there were 178 adult passengers, one child, two infants, two pilots and six cabin crew on board flight JT 610.

Among them were the plane’s Indian captain, 20 Indonesian finance ministry employees and Andrea Manfredi, an Italian former professional cyclist.

The search and rescue agency all but ruled out finding any survivors late Monday, citing the discovery of body parts that suggested a high-impact crash in water some 30-40 metres deep off the coast of Indonesia’s Java island. “We are prioritising finding the main wreckage of the plane using five warships equipped with sonar to detect metal underwater,” said Yusuf Latif, spokesperson of the Indonesian search and rescue agency. Both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder – which could be key pieces of evidence – are still missing.

The plane had been en route to Pangkal Pinang city, a jumping off point for beach-and-sun seeking tourists on nearby Belitung island, when it dropped out of contact around 6.30am.

Lion Air said the plane had only gone into service in August.

The pilot and co-pilot had more than 11,000 hours of flying time between them and had undergone recent medical checkups and drug testing, it added.

On Monday, Lion Air acknowledged the plane had an unspecified technical issue fixed in Bali before it was flown back to Jakarta, calling it “normal procedure”.

A technical logbook detailed an “unreliable” airspeed reading instrument on the Bali-Jakarta flight on Sunday and different altitude readings on the captain and first officer’s instruments, according to the BBC.

The company did not return phone calls seeking comment.

My daughter has no husband, my grandkid no longer has a father