Deadly crashes and near misses: why does Indonesia have such a notorious air safety record?
- Experts say that poor infrastructure, overworked pilots and rapid industry expansion have contributed to country’s history of aviation disasters
Investigators are still trying to piece together why a Lion Air plane plunged into the sea off Jakarta early on Monday morning with 189 people on board, even as Indonesian authorities continue searching for the plane’s fuselage.
The Boeing 737 Max jet had only been in service for two months. The plane’s speed and altitude sensors gave out irregular readings on Sunday but were later tested and cleared for flight, said Geoffrey Thomas, managing director of Airlineratings.com.
Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee said experts from Boeing would arrive in the country on Wednesday to help with the investigation.
Accident investigator Ony Suryo Wibowo told a news conference on Tuesday that officials only had a small amount of information at this point and had not yet found the plane’s flight recorders. He implored the public to be patient.
The Lion Air crash is the second-worst disaster in the history of Indonesian aviation. In 1997, a Garuda Airlines Airbus A-300 crashed because of limited visibility from forest fire smoke on its approach into Medan in Sumatra, killing all 234 people on board.
Shukor Yusof of Malaysia-based aviation consultancy Endau Analytics told Agence France-Presse the crash was “symptomatic of the overall concern that the aviation industry has with Indonesia’s air safety record”.
What makes flying in Indonesia so challenging?