Indonesian plane with 189 passengers on board crashes after taking off from Jakarta

PAKISJAYA, Indonesia (Reuters) – An Indonesian plane with 189 people on board crashed into the sea on Monday after taking off from the capital, Jakarta, bound for the tin mining area, announced. officials.

The Lion Air JT610 flight, a nearly new Boeing 737 MAX 8, lost contact with ground officials 13 minutes after takeoff and crashed about 15 km from the coast.

Indonesia is one of the fastest growing aviation markets in the world, although its safety performance is uneven. If all passengers are dead, this accident would be the second most serious air disaster in the country since 1997, industry experts said.

"We still do not know if there are any survivors," said Muhmmad Syaugi, director of the search and rescue agency, during a press conference, adding that "there are no survivors. no distress signal was received from the emergency transmitter of the aircraft.

"We hope, we pray, but we can not confirm."

Items such as cell phones and lifejackets were found in waters from a depth of about 30 to 35 meters near the place where the aircraft, a Boeing 737 MAX 8, has lost touch, he said.

"We are already here, our ships, our helicopter hovering over the water, to help," Syaugi said. "We try to dive to find the wreck."

Ambulances were lined up in Karawang, on the east coast of Jakarta, and police were preparing rubber dinghies, a Reuters journalist said. Fishing boats were used to help with research.

At least 23 government officials were aboard the plane, which, according to a spokesman for air navigation, tried to turn around just before losing touch.

Edward Sirait, managing director of Lion Air Group, told reporters that the plane had a technical problem on a flight connecting Bali's resort island of Bali to Jakarta but that it had been "resolved in accordance to the procedure ".

Sirait refused to specify the nature of the problem but said that none of his other appliances of this model had the same problem. Lion had operated 11 Boeing 737 Max 8s and he had no intention of anchoring them to the ground, he said.

The accident is the first to be reported involving the widely sold Boeing 737 MAX, an updated, more fuel-efficient version of the manufacturer's single-aisle jet.

Private airline Lion Air said the plane had been flying since August and that its pilot and co-pilot had accumulated 11,000 flying hours.

The head of the Indonesian Transport Safety Committee said he could not confirm the cause of the accident, which should wait for the recovery of the black boxes from the aircraft, because the cockpit voice recorder and the data theft logger are known.

"The plane is so modern, it transmits data from the plane, and we will also review it. But the most important thing is the black box, "said Soerjanto Tjahjono.

Security experts say that almost all accidents are caused by a combination of factors and that they rarely have a single identifiable cause.

The weather was clear, said Tjahjono.

President Joko Widodo said at a press conference that the authorities were focusing on search and rescue. He called for prayer and support for the country.

Something AMISS

Efforts to locate the wreckage and recover black boxes pose a major challenge for investigators in Indonesia, where an AirAsia Airbus aircraft crashed into the Java Sea in December 2015.

According to international rules, the US National Transportation Safety Board will automatically assist in Monday's crash investigation, supported by Boeing technical advisors and US engine manufacturer CFM International, jointly owned by General Electric and Safran.

Boeing was deeply saddened by the loss, he said in a statement, and was ready to provide technical assistance for the investigation.

The flight took off from Jakarta around 6:20 am and was scheduled to land at Pangkal Pinang, capital of the Bangka-Belitung tin mining area, at 7:20 am, revealed the Flightradar 24 website.

FlightRadar24 data show that the first sign of a problem occurred about two minutes after the start of the flight, when the aircraft had reached 2,000 feet (610 m).

He then descended more than 152 m (152 m) and turned left before climbing back to 1,524 m (5,000 m), where he remained for most of the flight.

He began to gain speed in the last moments and reached 345 knots (397 mph) before the data was lost while it was 3,650 feet (1,113 m).

His last recorded position was about 15 km north of the Indonesian coast, according to a Google Maps reference of the latest Flightradar24 coordinates.

The worst air disaster that occurred in Indonesia dates back to 1997, when an A300 Garuda Indonesia crashed in the city of Medan, killing 214 people.

Founded in 1999, Lion Air's only fatal accident dates back to 2004 when an MD-82 crashed on landing in Solo City, killing 25 people, Aviation Flight Safety Network announced. Safety Foundation.

In April, the airline announced a firm order for the purchase of 50 Boeing 737 MAX 10 narrow-body aircraft at a list price of $ 6.24 billion. It is one of the biggest customers of the American planemaker in the world.