Indonesia orders jet inspection after Lion Air plane crash

Indonesia has demanded an inspection of Lion Air and Garuda Boeing 737 Max 8 planes following Monday’s catastrophic air disaster.

A file photo of a Lion Air passenger jet taking off. Picture: AP

Indonesia’s transport minister has demanded Garuda and Lion Air conduct full inspections of their respective Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft fleets and submit their flight logbooks to the ministry for scrutiny as the search continues for the wreckage of Lion Air flight JT610 and those who perished with it.

Budi Karya Sumadi said the government had sent a letter to both carriers asking them to comply with the instructions as part of a wider ranging review into Monday’s catastrophic air disaster that authorities now believe has claimed the lives of all 189 people on board.

Garuda, the national carrier, has just one of the updated and widely-sold, single-aisle workhorses, while Lion Air has eight.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, left, Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi, center, and Chief of National Search and Rescue Agency Muhammad Syaugi, right, inspect debris and passengers' personal belongings. Picture: AP

Mr Budi said the government would “issue sanctions once we determine who is at fault”.

“Is the fault with management, is it with the aeroplane itself, or is it the crew or the operating procedures? We can better determine who is at fault once the KNKT have obtained the black box along with the data collected from operators from nine planes,” he said, referring to the National Transportation Safety Committee by its acronym.

“We are co-ordinating with Boeing who have promised to conduct their own investigation. We will collaborate and discuss our findings and submit both our findings to the KNKT.”

“Of course as regulators we will verify their findings and we have the right to conduct our own investigation based on clarifications they provide. We have obtained flight and maintenance logbooks and submitted them to KNKT for further scrutiny.”

Lion Air chief executive Edward Sirait has admitted a “technical issue” with the same two-month-old aircraft was reported during a flight from Bali to Jakarta Sunday evening but has insisted the issue was resolved “according to procedure” and the plane was deemed airworthy.

However Aviation-safety.net reported yesterday that the same “erratic” speed and altitude variations reported by the pilots of the aircraft Sunday night appeared to have occurred before the plane plunged into the Java Sea at speeds of up to 560km an hour, far above the typical rate of descent.

Search and Rescue personnel carry a body bag containing remains of a passenger. Picture: Getty

That information must still be verified against more accurate data from the black boxes, which four ships with multi-beam echo sounders were still searching for last night.

Flight JT 610 took off from Jakarta at 06:20 on Monday for the hour and ten minute flight to Pangkal Pinang, in Bangka Belitung province — a jumping off point for pristine beach destinations that the Indonesian government had been promoting as one of ten ‘alternative Balis’.

But just three minutes into the trip the captain — a pilot with more than 6000 flying hours — asked to return to Jakarta’s Soekarno Hatta airport. Ten minutes later the aircraft, with 189 people on board, dropped off the radar.

Indonesia’s National Search and rescue Agency (Basarnas) said last night it planned to widen the search for the missing fuselage and black box to a 15-nautical miles radius from today, deploying 34 boats, 50 divers and more than 800 military and civilian personnel.

Search and rescue operations would continue around the clock for at least another day, Basarnas chief Muhammad Syaugi said last night.

“I ask for the prayers of all the people of Indonesia so that we can find everyone, find the wreck site and recover the black box so we can determine what exactly happened.”

The accident is the first for Boeing’s most-advanced 737, which began flying for airlines last year, and is the worst commercial aviation disaster in three years.