Oh dear, this is scary!
The Star just reported at 10.15am that an Indonesian domestic flight had gone missing after they lost contact with the air traffic controllers at 6.33am today (29 October 2018), just 13 minutes after take-off from Jakarta. Oh no!
According to the report, the Lion Air flight (JT-610) took off from Jakarta airport at 6.20am local time. The flight was scheduled to arrive at Pangkal Pinang, Bangka Belitung Islands, Indonesia at 7.20am.
A recent update as of 10.32am revealed that the Lion Air jet had crashed in the north sea of Karawang, West Jawa. A spokesman of the agency, Yusuf Latif was quoted as saying,
“It has been confirmed that it has crashed.”
The Strait Times added that a tugboat gave information to the Tanjung Priok sea port’s Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) after it saw a plane “plunging into the water” this morning. This information was based on Jakarta’s local radio station, Elshinta radio.
At the time of writing, the report stated that there were 189 passengers and crew on board the plane including two infants, one child, two pilots and five flight attendants. The jet which crashed is a Boeing 737 MAX 8, according to air tracking service Flightradar 24.
The chief executive of Lion Air Group, Edward Sirait explained,
“We cannot give any comment at this moment. We are trying to collect all the information and data.”
The Star just updated that the pilot who flew the Air Lion plane was an Indian national named Captain Bhavye Suneja from New Dehli and he had been working for Air Lion for seven years and eight months.
A graduate from the Ahlcon Public School, New Dehli, he had completed a piloting course in Bel Air pilot training and flight school. Before joining Air Lion, the ill-fated pilot was a Boeing 737 trainee in Emirates for four months.
Harian Metro reported that the pilot had requested to return to the base before they went missing from the radar.
As of now, no further information about the incident has been disclosed. We hope that the authorities will look into this matter as fast as possible and reveal more about the condition of the flight and the people on it once they’ve gathered the relevant data.
This is a developing story. More to come.
Also read: Plane Forced to Make Emergency Landing Because Man Couldn’t Stop Farting