Lion Air passengers remember their roller coaster ride

October 30, 2018 / 09h34 GMT

By Alastair Jamieson

Passengers of what became the penultimate flight of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 Air Lion who crashed off Indonesia described technical delays and a ride in "roller coaster" which caused panic and vomiting.

The three-month plane plunged into the Java Sea on Monday morning, just 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta for a short internal flight. All 189 on board are presumed dead.

The pilot of flight JT610 had requested permission to return to the airport a few moments after takeoff, without knowing why.

It turned out that the flightless aircraft had encountered technical problems during his previous flight – a Sunday night trip between Denpasar (Bali) and Jakarta, under flight number JT43.

Alon Soetanto told TVOne that the plane had stalled several times during the first minutes of his trip.

"About three to eight minutes after take-off, I thought the plane was losing power and was unable to get in. It happened several times," he said. "We felt like a roller coaster, and some passengers started to panic and vomit."

His story is consistent with data from flight tracking sites that show erratic speed, altitude, and direction within minutes of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 taking off. A similar pattern is also observed in the data sent since the fatal flight. Monday.

Security experts warned, however, that the accuracy of the data needed to be checked against the flight data recorders of the aircraft.

An alleged image showing a page of the technical diary of the plane was circulating on social media, but the aviation analyst, Jon Ostrower, warned that the photo was not verified.

The NTSB has announced the dispatch of five investigators to Indonesia.

Lion Air president Edward Sirait said the problems had been solved according to Boeing procedures and that the plane had been allowed to fly again on Monday.

Indonesian TV presenter Conchita Caroline, an Indonesian TV presenter, said the plane returned to the Denpasar gate with a technical problem before take-off.

She added that passengers were sitting in the cabin without air conditioning for at least 30 minutes, listening to an "unusual" engine roar, while children were vomiting under the effect of heat, until the staff, faced with growing anger, let them off the ground. After another 30 minutes of waiting, they were asked to climb again while the engine was being controlled.

Caroline said that she had interviewed a staff member but that she had had a defensive reaction. "He just showed me the flight permit that he had signed and he said that the problem had been solved," she said. "He treated me like a passenger full of troubling dramas, even though what I was asking for was confusing friends and tourists who did not understand Indonesian."

Divers on Tuesday continued their search for victims while the airline was carrying dozens of relatives in mourning in Jakarta.

"It's a very difficult time for our family," said Leo Sihombing in front of a crisis center located at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta Airport.

"We know that it is very unlikely that my cousin is still alive, but no one can provide certainty or explanation," he said while other family members were crying. and hugged each other.

"What we hope now is that rescuers can find his body, so that we can bury him properly and that the authorities can reveal the cause of the plane crash. "said Sihombing.

The Indonesian National Agency for Search and Rescue reported that 10 intact bodies as well as body parts had been recovered. Debris and personal belongings from airplanes, ID cards to clothes and bags found in the seas northeast of Jakarta, are scattered on tarpaulins.

The head of the agency, Muhammad Syaugi, expressed confidence in locating the hull of the aircraft and its onboard recorders because of the relatively shallow depth of the waters where he was crushed.

The disaster is the first crash of a Boeing 737 MAX 8 – an updated version of the twin-engine, and restores security concerns in Indonesia's growing aerospace industry, recently removed from the lists European Union and the United States.

Lion Air, a discount carrier, is one of Indonesia's youngest and largest airlines serving dozens of domestic and international destinations. Earlier this year, the group confirmed an agreement to purchase 50 new Boeing narrow-body aircraft valued at $ 6.2 billion. It has developed aggressively in Southeast Asia, a rapidly growing region of more than 600 million inhabitants.

The 737 MAX 8 is widely used in the United States, including Southwest Airlines, which has at least 23 aircraft in its fleet.

"We are in contact with Boeing and will closely monitor the situation and all the conclusions of this tragic event," said a spokesman for Southwest Airlines. "Currently, our MAX fleet remains fully operational without adjusting our schedule."