[ad_1]
A major research effort has helped determine the possible location of the Lion Air jet crashed on the seabed, the Indonesian military chief said Wednesday, as experts used to identify dozens of body parts found in a search area of 15 km.
The 2-month-old Boeing plane plunged into the Java Sea on Monday, just minutes after taking off from Jakarta, killing all 189 passengers.
"Based on the presentation of the head of the National Agency for Search and Rescue, the coordinates of the suspect body of the aircraft were found.We will send a team on site to confirm," said the Chief of Armed Forces Hadi Tjahjanto.
The disaster has rekindled security concerns in Indonesia's growing aeronautics industry, recently removed from EU and US blacklists, and raised doubts about the security of the country. Boeing 737 MAX 8 new generation aircraft.
Boeing Co. experts are expected to arrive in Indonesia on Wednesday and Lion Air said an "intense" internal investigation was underway, in addition to the investigation by security authorities.
The location of the fuselage will bring together searches of flight recorders from the aircraft, which are essential to the investigation of the accident.
The data from the flight tracking sites show that the aircraft had an erratic speed and altitude in the first minutes of a flight on Sunday and during his fatal flight on Monday. Security experts warn though that the accuracy of the data needs to be checked against the "black boxes" of the plane, which, they hope, will be recovered.
Passengers flying Sunday between Bali and Jakarta recounted issues such as delayed take-off for an engine control and terrifying descents during the first 10 minutes of flight.
Lion Air said that the maintenance of the aircraft had been carried out after the flight on Sunday and that a problem, unspecified, had been corrected.
Officials said repeated searches sent 48 body bags to police identification experts.
Anxious family members provided samples for DNA testing and the police announced that the results were expected within 4 to 8 days.
Lion Air president Edward Sirait told the Associated Press that the date of a meeting with Boeing experts was still uncertain. Daniel Putut, chief executive of Lion Air, said Tuesday night that the airline hopes to meet with Boeing officials Wednesday afternoon.
"Of course, we will ask them many things, we all have questions to ask:" Why? What's the problem with this new plane, "Putut said.
The Indonesian Ministry of Transportation has ordered the inspection of all Boeing 737 MAX 8 operated by Lion Air and the national carrier Garuda. Lion has ordered 50 aircraft, valued at $ 6.2 billion, and currently operates nine.
Boeing declined to comment on potential inspections at the global level.
The aircraft manufacturer said in a bulletin to the airline "Boeing does not recommend any intervention on the part of the operator at the moment," according to two people close to the case.
This accident is the worst air disaster in Indonesia since the departure of an AirAsia flight connecting Singapore to Singapore in December 2014, leaving 162 dead on board.
In 2007, Indonesian airlines were banned from traveling to Europe for security reasons, but several were allowed to return to service in the next decade. The ban was completely lifted in June. The United States lifted the decadelong ban in 2016.
Lion Air, a discount carrier, is one of the youngest and largest airlines in Indonesia serving dozens of domestic and international destinations. It has developed aggressively in Southeast Asia, a rapidly growing region of more than 600 million inhabitants.
—
AP reporters Andi Jatmiko in Jakarta, Indonesia and David Koenig in Dallas contributed to the story.
