Lion Air plane crash: What we know so far about flight JT610

Lion Air plane crash: What we know so far about flight JT610

The plane lost contact 13 minutes after takeoff from Jakarta at around 6.20am (7.20am Singapore time), a spokesman for Indonesia's search and rescue agency said, as updates on the crash continued to trickle in.

It was due to have landed in Pangkal Pinang, on the island of Bangka, at 7.20am, the Flightradar24 website showed.

PASSENGERS AND CREW

There were 189 people were on board, including six crew members and two pilots. Two infants and a child were among the passengers.

The finance ministry said about 20 of its employees were on the plane.

Indonesian officials named the captain of the flight as Bhavye Suneja, who according to local media reports, has been identified as an Indian national who has been with the airline for seven years.

According to Lion Air, Suneja and his co-pilot, Harvino, had 11,000 hours of flying between them.

THE PLANE

The plane was a Boeing 737-800 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 took delivery of the aircraft, which was made this year, on Aug 13 - with its first flight two days later.

The plane with registration number PK-LQP had a technical problem on a previous flight but it had been resolved according to procedure, Lion Air's CEO said.

"This plane previously flew from Denpasar to Cengkareng (Jakarta). There was a report of a technical issue which had been resolved according to procedure," Edward Sirait told reporters, declining to specify the nature of the technical issue.

He said Lion has operated 11 aircraft of the same model, the Boeing 737 Max 8, and the other planes did not have the same technical problem. Sirait said there was no plan to ground the rest of its Boeing 737 Max 8 fleet.

FLIGHT PATH

Preliminary flight tracking data from Flightradar24 shows the aircraft climbed to around 5,000ft before losing, and then regaining height before finally falling towards the sea.

It was last recorded at 3,650ft 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 15km north of the Indonesian coastline, according to a Google Maps reference of the last coordinates reported by Flightradar24.

Kompas TV in a news report cited an air traffic controller at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport as saying that takeoff was normal for the Lion Air flight. But after a few minutes, the pilot radioed back to request a return back to the airport.

The request was approved, but contact was lost shortly after.

"The plane crashed into water about 30 to 40 metres deep," search and rescue agency spokesman Yusuf Latif told AFP.

"We're still searching for the remains of the plane."