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A plane carrying 188 people crashed into the sea north of Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, shortly after take-off on Monday morning. Lion Air’s flight JT-610 was heading to Pangkal Pinang, an island north of Indonesia’s capital when it lost contact with air control about 6.33am local time (10.33am AEDT, 11.33pm BST) –  just 13 minutes after take-off.

Indonesian rescue workers helped remove a section of a Lion Air

Before the tragic accident, the plane’s pilots had asked to return to the airport, Sindu Rahayu, head of Cooperation and Public Relations at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, said.

Traffic control allowed the return, but the aircraft vanished from the radar shortly after. Authorities are not sure why the plane crashed, as the weather was sunny, the aircraft was new and the pilots experienced.

‘It has been confirmed that it has crashed,’ Yusuf Latif, a spokesman for the agency, said by text message, when asked about the fate of the Lion Air plane.

LionAir’s CEO Edward Sirait said a technical problem had been raised about the plane before it took off, but added the plane was cleared by engineers before take-off on Monday morning.

Preliminary flight tracking data from Flightradar24 shows the aircraft climbed to around 5,000 feet (1,524 m) before losing, and then regaining, height, before finally falling towards the sea.

It was last recorded at 3,650 feet (1,113 m) and its speed had risen to 345 knots, according to raw data captured by the respected tracking website, which could not immediately be confirmed.

Its last recorded position was about 15 km (9 miles) north of the Indonesian coastline, according to a Google Maps reference of the last coordinates reported by Flightradar24.

The accident is the first to be reported that involves the widely-sold Boeing 737 MAX, an updated, more fuel-efficient version of the manufacturer’s workhorse single-aisle jet. The first Boeing 737 MAX jets were introduced into service in 2017.

Lion Air’s Malaysian subsidiary, Malindo Air, received the very first global delivery.

Dr Soerjanto Tjahjono, who heads up Indonesia’s national transportation safety committee, told reporters the doomed plane had only clocked about 800 flight hours since beginning service in August.

Officials are urgently trying to find out if any Australians were on board the doomed flight.

‘The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is aware of reports of the missing Lion Air aircraft in Indonesia,’ a spokesperson from DFAT said.

‘The Australian Embassy in Jakarta is making urgent enquiries with local authorities to determine if any Australians were affected.’

Lion Air is one of Indonesia’s youngest and biggest airlines, flying to dozens of domestic and international destinations.

In 2013, one of its Boeing 737-800 jets missed the runway while landing on the resort island of Bali, crashing into the sea without causing any fatalities among the 108 people on board.

Indonesia has a horror track record on air safety and only recently the European Union removed all Indonesia airlines from its aviation safety blacklist.

Three major Indonesia airlines, including Lion, were upgraded to the top safety tier in June after passing a key international audit.

There have been more than 40 air accidents resulting in deaths in Indonesia since 2001.

A rapid expansion of air travel in recent years has seen an explosion of low-cost airlines operating in the country.

The Troubled  past of the Lion Air

The Lion Air passenger plane carrying 188 people when it crashed off the coast of Indonesia is the latest in a long list of incidents for the budget flight charter.

The low-cost airline has been involved in numerous crashes in recent years, AeroInside historical incident reports reveal. 

In 2017, one of the company’s Boeing jets collided with a Wings Air plane during a botched landing at Kualanamu airport on the island of Sumatra.

Nobody was injured in the collision.

In May of 2016, two Lion Air planes collided at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta airport. 

Only one month prior, a plane operated by Batik Air, which is a part of the Lion Group, clipped a TransNusa plane. 

Three years earlier, in 2013, a Lion Air jet, piloted by a young, inexperienced rookie underestimated the runway while attempting to land the plane in Bali.

The plane, carrying 108 passengers crashed into the sea and subsequently split in two.

Several people were injured in the crash, but nobody was killed.

In 2013, a Lion Air jet, piloted by a young, inexperienced rookie underestimated the runway while attempting to land the plane in Bali.

Indonesian rescue workers helped remove a section of a Lion Air Boeing 737 from the sea four days after it crashed while trying to land at Bali’s international airport (Pictured 2013 crash in Bali)

Several other documents confirm there have been multiple occasions involving miscalculation of runways, resulting in minor damage to the planes in 2012 and 2013. 

At least 32 people were killed and another 61 injured when a Lion Air plane skidded off the runway in Central Java in 2014 after landing in bad weather.  

Authorities are working to determine how many people were killed on the Lion Air flight that crashed into the sea north of Indonesia’s capital Jakarta 13 minutes after take-off today.

The fates of the passengers are so far unknown, but relatives were seen crying as they awaited news on their loved ones, and body parts were seen floating in the sea nearby the crash site.

Lion Air’s flight JT-610 was heading to Pangkal Pinang, an island north of Indonesia’s capital. 

The domestic flight lost contact with air traffic control at about 6.33am local time (10.33am AEDT, 11.33pm BST).

Indonesia’s air travel industry is booming, but has a reputation of poor safety regulations and frequent incidents across the board.

The European Union barred Indonesian airlines from flying to Europe in 2007 due to safety concerns. Lion Air was allowed to resume flights to Europe as of June 2016, and the ban on all other Indonesian airlines was lifted earlier this year. 

At least 32 people were killed and another 61 injured when a Lion Air plane skidded off the runway in Central Java in 2014 after landing in bad weather (pictured 2004 crash in Central Java)

It mirrors the reputation of Malaysian airlines, who have been tainted by the memory of missing MH370 and the shot down MH17.  

On the 8th of March, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared while flying from Malaysia to China, and was never located – nor were the passengers.

Only months later, in July of 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down on its path from Amsterdam to Malaysia while flying over Ukraine. 

All 283 passengers and 15 crew on board died.

Outside of Lion Air’s troubling aviation history, accidents are still rife.

In August, a 12-year-old boy was the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed all eight other people on board a private aircraft.

Three years prior, in August of 2015, 54 people were killed after a Trigana aircraft crashed in poor weather conditions.     

Daily Mail
UM– USEKE.RW
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