Lion Air plane crash: Rescue workers retrieve bodies from sea off Jakarta

MINUTES before a doomed Lion Air flight crashed into the ocean, a newlywed man was messaging his wife, and even sent her a selfie.

Deryl Fida Febrianto, 22 was among the 189 passengers aboard flight JT 610, which plunged into the water shortly after takeoff.

The photo emerged as Indonesian officials revealed their grim findings at the crash site.

Mr Febrianto had been married to his wife, Lutfinani Eka Putri for less than two months, and he was on his way to start his job as a cruise ship worker.

Ms Putri’s childhood sweetheart sent the photo at 6.01am, wearing a green medical mask and staring into the camera. The two were lovingly texting while he was on the plane.

The pair stopped messaging at 6.12am before the plane took off eight minutes later. Shortly after, Ms Putri’s world was turned upside down.

“When I saw the news, I matched the flight number with the ticket photo Deryl had sent,” Ms Putri told reporters.

“I immediately started crying.”

BABY’S BODY RETRIEVED FROM CRASH SITE
Twenty-four body bags from the crash site of Flight JT 610 have been taken to hospital for post mortem examination, Indonesian authorities say, with more than 650 police personnel participating in the recovery efforts.

Limbs and other human remains have filled the body bags, head of Indonesia’s national search and rescue agency, Muhammad Syaugi, told Metro TV. And the identification process will be difficult as so few bodies are in tact, National Police Chief Ari Dono Sukmanto told reporters at a news conference.

The remains of a baby were among those found, believed to be one of two on board.

Bags filled with debris have also been collected. Shoes, items of clothing and a wallet are among the items found.

“We hope we can see the plane’s main body — everything on the surface of the water has been collected,” Syaugi said.

TECHNICAL ISSUE JUST DAYS EARLIER
The doomed Lion Air flight carrying 189 passengers had a technical issue in the days leading up to the crash, it has been revealed.

It comes as the final moments of flight JT 610 have emerged, with passengers enduring 13 minutes of hell before the plane plunged into the Java Sea.

Moments after take-off, Pilot Bhavye Suneja reported technical difficulties and requested he return to Jakarta airport, which was permitted by air traffic control.

However a minute later the aircraft lost contact with ground staff, when the plane had reached about 2000 feet, according to tracking data from internet-based aircraft service Flightradar24.

The plane then climbed to 4850 feet before plummeting to sea in just 21 seconds.

The final data point obtained by FlightRadar24 showed the plane descending at 30,976 feet per minute. Its final nosedive was at about 560 kilometres an hour.

“An RTB (return to base) was requested and had been approved but we’re still trying to figure out the reason,” Soerjanto Tjahjono, head of Indonesia’s transport safety committee, told reporters, referring to the pilot’s request to return to Jakarta airport.

“We hope the black box is not far from the main wreckage so it can be found soon,” he said, referring to the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder.

The plane, which the budget airline received in August, had also experienced an unspecified technical issue on the flight beforehand.

Bambang Suryo, operational director of the search and rescue agency, said divers, sonar vessels and an underwater drone were searching the site.

The aircraft was carrying 181 passengers, including one child and two babies, as well as six cabin crew members and two pilots.

BODIES RETRIEVED FROM THE OCEAN
Rescue workers have begun recovering bodies from the Java Sea after the crash near Jakarta on Monday, killing everyone on board.

Authorities told Metro TV that 24 bags containing body parts had been taken to a hospital for identification, with more expected.

Distraught family members and friends are now left struggling to comprehend how a two-month-old Lion Air plane with experienced pilots crashed.

The pilot of Flight 610 had more than 6000 flying hours while the co-pilot had more than 5000 hours, according to Lion Air and weather conditions were normal.

More than 300 people including soldiers, police and fishermen are involved in the grim search, retrieving aircraft debris and personal items such as a crumpled mobile phone, ID cards and carry-on bags from the seas northeast of Jakarta.

The rescue workers have reportedly recovered six bodies, CNN reports, and have delivered 24 bags with body parts to a hospital in east Jakarta. The identities of the bodies have not yet been revealed.

Lion Air said there were two foreigners on the plane: one of the pilots, Indian national Bhavye Suneja, and an Italian citizen.

Bambang Suryo Aji, director of operations for Basarnas, told a news conference that rescue workers had found debris appearing to be the plane’s tail but the main wreckage had still not been located.

Search and Rescue Agency chief Muhammad Syaugi said he is certain it will not take long to locate the hull of the aircraft and its black box because of the relatively shallow (30-35m) depths of the waters it plunged into.

Three specialised search ships, including one from Singapore, are to help with the search.

PLAGUED BY SAFETY ISSUES
The disaster is another setback for Indonesia’s plagued airline industry, which just emerged from decade-long bans by the European Union and the US over safety concerns. And Lion Air has played a role in that ban, with a long history of safety issues.

Founded in 1999 by brothers Rusdi and Kusnan Kirani, the budget carrier began operations in 2000 as Indonesia’s first low-cost carrier, using a leased Boeing 737-200 between Jakarta and Denpasar, capital of the resort island of Bali.

It quickly rode the crest of Indonesia’s soaring domestic air travel sector to become the country’s biggest private airline and second largest in Southeast Asia after Malaysian carrier AirAsia.

The carrier currently operates domestic flights and a number of international routes in Southeast Asia, Australia and the Middle East.

However, it has struggled with issues of safety and poor management.

Its first deadly accident in 2004 saw 26 people killed and more than 100 injured when a Lion Air plane skidded at an airport in the central Java city of Solo, with the airline blaming bad weather and strong tailwinds.

In 2013, a rookie pilot at the controls of a Lion Air plane undershot the runway and landed in the sea off Bali, splitting the plane in two and forcing passengers to swim to safety. Remarkably no one was killed in the accident.

Three years later, two Lion Air passenger planes clipped wings as they were about to take off from Jakarta’s main Soekarno-Hatta airport.

This latest crash has just become “symptomatic of the overall concern that the aviation industry has with Indonesia’s air safety record”, Shukor Yusof of Malaysia-based aviation consultancy Endau Analytics said.

Between 2010 and 2015, Indonesia has had an air incident each year where the plane had to be written off, Mr Yusof told AFP.

Indonesia “needs a lot of assistance from aviation specialists and experts”, he said, adding, “the country appears unable to resolve this problem on its own.”

Infrastructure improvements, pilot training and aircraft maintenance have not kept pace with the explosion in air traffic growth in the country, analysts have warned.

Australia’s foreign affairs ministry has now instructed Australian government officials and contractors not to fly on Lion Air or their subsidiary airlines following the crash.

The statement posted on the ministry’s website said the decision will be reviewed when the findings of the crash investigation are clear.

It also said its overall level of travel advice for Indonesia was unchanged from its recommendation to exercise a high degree of caution.