An Indonesian transport plane with 189 people on board crashed into the sea shortly after taking off from the country's capital, Jakarta, Monday morning. The new aircraft was delivered to low-cost carrier Lion Air in August.

Bambang Suryo Aji, Indonesia's chief of search and rescue, said the recovery efforts were mainly aimed at finding the bodies and that he was not expecting anyone to survive, according to the report. Associated Press. He said human remains had been found.

JT 610 took off at 6:20 am local time and crashed 13 minutes later, officials from the Indonesian Ministry of Transportation said. The flight was headed for the town of Pangkal Pinang on Bangka – the ninth largest island in Indonesia – when it lost touch.

Nugroho Budi Wiryanto, responsible for search and rescue, said the black box of the plane had not been found yet. The plane crashed into the water at a depth of about 100 to 115 feet, officials said from the Department of Transport.

In an official statement, the relief agency said that the reason for the accident was still uncertain and confirmed that the beacon of the local emergency transmitter of the aircraft had not issued a distress signal.

The plane had asked to return to Jakarta soon after takeoff, according to the spokesman of the Directorate of Air Transport, Sindu Rahayu. "The plane had asked to return to the base before disappearing from the radar," he said.

Images of debris and objects such as a mobile phone and floatation devices at sea were posted on Twitter by the spokesman of the Search and Rescue Agency, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho .

The aircraft was a brand new Boeing 737 MAX 8 that was delivered to Lion Air in August, according to data from the Flightradar24 air traffic monitoring site.

China News Service announced that a Chinese company, China Minsheng Investment Group Leasing Holdings Ltd., owned the aircraft and leased it to Lion Air.

Lion Air president Edward Sirait told reporters on Monday that the plane had a technical problem during his previous flight, but had been resolved according to the manufacturer's procedures. He did not provide specific details about this incident.

Lion Air provided the names of the pilots and cabin crew on board. The captain, Bhavye Suneja, had more than 6,000 flying hours and the co-pilot, listed under the sole name of Harvino, had more than 5,000 flying hours, according to a statement. Many Indonesians carry only one name.

The Boeing 737 MAX series is only operational since 2016 and it is the first accident involving the aircraft, a single-aisle aircraft used for short-haul flights. The aircraft, with a maximum capacity of 210 passengers, received 4,783 orders from airlines, of which 219 were executed in September 2018, according to company data.

In a statement, Boeing expressed his condolences to the victims and their families and said he "stood ready to provide technical assistance to the investigation of the accident".

Lion Air, founded in 1999, has already had problems with security and maintenance and has been seen banning access to flights in the European airspace from 2007 to 2016. The airline has had a crash in 2004, killing 25 people, and several other incidents, including a crash in the sea near Bali in which all 108 passengers survived.

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