Lion Air Plane Crash: More Remains of Passengers Recovered

Report says plane 'flew erratically' just a day before crashing

Officials recovered the remains of several people who were on the Lion Air plane that crashed into the sea, national deputy police chief Ari Dono Sukmanto said on Oct. 30, adding that the remains of a baby were discovered.

Lion Air flight JT610 plunged into the sea off of Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, just minutes after it took off, Channel News Asia reported. The plane departed for Pangkal Pinang city, about one hour away, but it was heading back to the Jakarta airport.

Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee said that 178 adults, one child, two babies, and six crew members were on the plane. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Boeing said they would provide assistance in the crash investigation, the Channel News Asia report said.

All of the people on board the plane are presumed dead.

A boat sails near the debris field from the ill-fated Lion Air flight JT610 in the waters north of Karawang, West Java province, on Oct. 29, 2018. Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images

Flew Erratically

A day before the plane went down, it flew erratically and its airspeed readings were unreliable, The Guardian reported, citing a flight-tracking website and an accident investigator.

On the evening of Oct. 28, the plane “displayed unusual variations in altitude and airspeed” in the first several minutes of the flight after it took off to Bali. The plane, at one point, made an 875-foot drop over 27 seconds when it should have been ascending, the report noted.

Lion Air CEO Edward Sirait said Monday that a technical problem took place on the Denpasar-Jakarta flight, but it was resolved.

“It got repaired in Denpasar [in Bali] and then it was flown to Jakarta,” he was quoted by Sky News as saying. “Engineers in Jakarta received notes and did another repair before it took off on Monday. That’s the normal procedure for any plane.”

A forensic investigator looks through the remains of Lion Air flight JT610 at the Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Oct. 29, 2018. Ed Wray/Getty Images

Before the crash, the pilot had asked to return to base after the plane took off from Jakarta and lost contact with ground staff after about 13 minutes, Reuters reported. “An RTB 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 the news outlet.

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

Lion Air said the plane, a Boeing 737 MAX 8, went operational in August. Boeing wrote on Twitter that it is “aware of reports of an airplane accident and is closely monitoring the situation,” about an hour after the accident, Airways Magazine reported. It added that it was “deeply saddened” by the crash and is prepared to provide technical assistance to Indonesia’s crash probe, The Associated Press reported.