The National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) received a report on Monday morning that air traffic control had lost contact with a Lion Air flight from Jakarta to Pangkalpinang in Bangka Belitung.
A vessel traffic service officer in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, Suyadi, told The Jakarta Post that at 6:45 a.m. he received a report from a tugboat, AS Jaya II, that the crew had seen a downed plane, suspected to be a Lion Air plane, in Tanjung Bungin in Karawang, West Java.
The directorate general is coordinating with relevant authorities to conduct search and rescue operations, she said.
"The directorate general is coordinating with National Search and Rescue Agency, Lion Air as the operator, the Sea Transportation Directorate General and the Indonesian Flight Navigation Service Institution (LPPNPI) in search and rescue activities for the JT 610 plane," Sindu Rahayu of the Air Transportation Directorate General said in a statement on Monday morning.
A vessel traffic service officer at Tanjung Priok Port in North Jakarta, Suyadi, told The Jakarta Post that a tugboat crew reported to him that they saw the debris of the plane 7 nautical miles (12.96 kilometers) north of Tanjung Bungin, Karawang, West Java.
The flight was operated by Boeing 737 MAX 8 registration PK-LQP. The aircraft was delivered to Lion Air in August of this year. It is powered by two CFM LEAP-1B engines. https://t.co/Jv0z8vytv3 #JT610 pic.twitter.com/yCkR2PbMUa — Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) October 29, 2018
Flightradar24, a Swedish internet-based service that shows real-time commercial aircraft flight information on a map, tweeted on Monday morning Jakarta time that the plane was "brand new" and Lion Air received it only in August this year.
The plane was scheduled to land at Depati Amir Airport in Pangkalpinang at 7:10 a.m. Jakarta time.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/10/29/breaking-178-passengers-on-downed-lion-air-flight-ministry-says.html
Lion Air plane crash: Possible location of fuselage located, officials say
A team searching for Indonesia's Lion Air Flight JT610 heard a "pinging sound" late Tuesday, possibly indicating they may have the seabed location of the doomed airliner's fuselage off Jakarta's coast. The Boeing 737 Max 8 jet, a plane put into service two months ago, plunged into the Java Sea moments after takeoff early Monday.
There were 189 people on board and they are all presumed dead.
Indonesia's military chief has said he believes the Flight JT610 has been found.
"Based on the presentation of the head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, the coordinates of the suspected body of the aircraft have been found," Hadi Tjahjanto told an Indonesian TV station. "We will send a team there to confirm," he added.
"Pinger locators" are being used to try to locate the so-called "black boxes" containing the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, according to the Reuters news agency.
"Yesterday afternoon, the team had heard a ping sound in a location at 35 meters depth," Haryo Satmiko, the deputy chief of the national transport safety panel, told Reuters, referring to a depth of 115 feet.
Recovery crews in Indonesia have been finding bodies and debris over the last couple days. Lion Air's president admitted the aircraft, delivered in August, had a "technical issue" in its previous flight Sunday but insisted the problem was fixed.
Late Tuesday, news of 13 more body bags have been sent for DNA analysis, bringing the total to 37 so far.
Indonesian transportation officials are looking into imposing sanctions on Lion Air operations following the fatal crash. This is the first crash involving the Boeing 737 Max 8, one of the company's most advanced jets. Boeing said experts are expected to arrive in Indonesia on Wednesday as an "intense" internal investigation by Lion Air is underway.
Flight-tracking websites had documented the plane's erratic speed and altitude in the early stages of a flight earlier Sunday and the fatal last flight Monday. The Associated Press reports safety experts are exercising caution before coming to a conclusion to what caused the flight to crash.
Preliminary data will be checked for accuracy against the plane's "black boxes," which officials are confident will be recovered, AP added.
Indonesia's troubled aviation history
The crash is the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea in December 2014, killing all 162 on board.
Indonesian airlines were barred in 2007 were flying to Europe because of safety concerns, though several were allowed to resume services in the following decade. The ban was completely lifted in June this year. The U.S. lifted a decade long ban in 2016.
Full story at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lion-air-plane-crash-flight-jt610-possible-location-fuselage-wreckage-today-2018-10-30/