A wallet belonging to a victim of the Lion Air passenger jet (Photo: AP) Jakarta (VNA) – Divers on November 1 found landing gear from the Indonesian Lion Air plane which crashed into the sea off western Indonesia on October 29, killing all 189 people on board.
Head of Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) Muhammad Syaugi said in the evening that the landing gear, larger parts of the crashed aircraft, including some parts of the fuselage, and parts of several dead bodies were found by a remotely operated underwater vehicle on the seabed.
Earlier the same day, the aircraft’s black box data recorder was detected among debris in the mud on the sea floor at a depth of 32.5m.
Soerjanto Tjahjono, head of the National Transportation Safety Committee, said a preliminary accident report should be released within a month and the final report could take four to six months.
The jet, a Boeing 737 MAX 8, was en route from Jakarta to Pangkakpinang in Bangka Belitung province off Sumatra island. It lost contact with air traffic control just 13 minutes after takeoff.
The incident is reported to be the first major accident involving a Boeing 737 Max - an updated version of the 737.
The Lion Air crash is the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since 1997, when 234 people died after a Garuda flight crashed near Medan.-VNA
VNA
