Search continues for Lion Air victims and wreckage
October 29, 2018
A Boeing-737 MAX 8 jet belonging to Indonesia's Lion Air company crashed on Monday only 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta. Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) said 181 passengers — including one child and two infants — and eight cabin crew were on board flight JT610 when it plunged into the Java Sea.
Divers continued to search on Tuesday to find the remains of the passengers and high-tech equipment was deployed to find the Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet's data recorders.
The airline flew a number of relatives to Jakarta.
The carrier acknowledged that the jet had previously been grounded for unspecified repairs, according to media reports. The plane became operational in August, according to Lion Air.
In an interview with DW, Agus Hariono, the head of Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency's (Basarnas) operations sub-directorate, spoke about the difficulties his teams are facing in locating the crashed plane.
DW: What can you tell us about the ongoing search and rescue operation to locate the crashed plane?
Agus Hariono: We are still trying to determine the exact position where the Lion Air plane crashed. We've found some debris from the plane, as well as some body parts of the passengers.
A police team is also helping us identify the body parts.
After finding some plane and body parts, we have taken them to Basarnas' rescue office at Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta. We are now waiting for a team from the National Transportation Safety Commission (KNKT) to conduct further investigation on the cause of the crash. In the meantime, our team will continue to search the sea area.
Read more: Analyst: 'Indonesia has a poor air safety record'
You said that you have found debris and body parts. Does that mean that you are close to finding the exact location of the crash?
We believe that the location of the crash should not be too far from where we found the debris, as we found it not too long after we received information about the crash. So we are now conducting an intensive search within about a mile from the position where the debris was found.
Do you think there could be any crash survivors?
So far we haven't found any, but we still hope to find survivors. We will keep searching for survivors.
Read more: Indian airlines struggle in a turbulent aviation market
What kind of difficulties are you facing in your search and rescue operations?
The main issue is related to determining the exact location of the crash. Luckily, the weather conditions are good, and it is not raining at the moment.
How many teams have you deployed for the search mission?
There are more than ten rescue vessels and more than 100 personnel from our agency, the Indonesian National Police and the Ministry of Transportation and Customs. They're all working together in the search and rescue mission.
Agus Hariono is the head of Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency's (Basarnas) operations sub-directorate.
The interview was conducted by Arti Ekawati.