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Investigators probe jet's crash into sea in Bali

The wreckage of a crashed Lion Air plane rests on the water near the airport in Bali, Indonesia, Saturday, April 13, 2013. The plane carrying more than 100 passengers and crew overshot a runway on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Saturday and crashed into the sea, injuring nearly two dozen people, officials said.

BALI, Indonesia Indonesian investigators on Sunday began working to determine what caused a new Lion Air passenger jet to miss a runway while landing on the resort island of Bali, crashing into the sea without causing any fatalities among the 108 on board.

The National Transportation Safety Committee is examining the wreckage of the Boeing 737-800 that snapped in half before coming to a stop in shallow water near Bali's airport on Saturday, said Transportation Ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan.


He said aviation authorities had already removed the plane's flight data recorder and were planning to tow the aircraft to a beach. Divers were searching for the cockpit voice recorder located in the tail. Experts are examining what could have caused the crash, including whether wind shear may have played a role.
Officials said there were three foreigners on board - two Singaporeans and a French national - all of whom suffered slight injuries.

Lion Air spokesman Edward Sirait said the plane crashed about 50 meters (164 feet) ahead of the runway. The weather was cloudy with rain at the time of the incident.

He said the Boeing 737-800 Next Generation plane was received by the airline last month and was declared airworthy. The plane had landed in two other cities on Saturday prior to the crash.

Given that the aircraft was new, Sydney-based aviation expert Tom Ballantyne said a technical or mechanical problem would seem unlikely. He said it was fortunate that the plane landed flat in shallow water rather than nose-diving or hitting deep water, where it could have quickly been submerged.

"I'm surprised. The airplane split in two upon impact," he said, estimating it was likely traveling close to 300 miles (483 kilometers) per hour.

"It was coming into land and hit the water very hard. It's a miracle nobody was killed," Ballantyne said.

It was unclear whether human error may have played a role in the accident, and Sirait said the pilot was experienced, logging 10,000 flying hours. However, Indonesian aviation analyst Ruth Simatupang, a former investigator at the National Safety Transportation Committee, suspects some sort of miscalculation involving the landing.

"Something was obviously wrong with the pilot, and wind shear is a possibility that could lead to an unstable approach," she said. Sudden changes in wind speed or direction can lift or smash aircraft into the ground during landing.

The pilot and co-pilot will be grounded for two weeks for tests to ensure they were healthy during the flight and for questioning by investigators. They also have undergone alcohol and drug testing, and the preliminary results were negative, Herry Bakti Gumay, a Transportation Ministry official, told a news conference Sunday. In the past two years, three pilots, one co-pilot and a flight attendant from Lion Air have been arrested for illicit drug use.

The airline said it planned to suck the remaining fuel from the undamaged tanks in the plane's wings before towing it at high tide to avoid destroying the area's coral reefs. Bali is one of Asia's most popular destinations, drawing millions of vacationers with its world-class surf and beautiful beaches.

Rapidly expanding Lion Air is Indonesia's top discount carrier, holding about a 45 percent market share in the country, a sprawling archipelago of 240 million people that's seeing a boom in both economic growth and air travel. The airline has been involved in six accidents since 2002, four of them involving Boeing 737s and one resulting in 25 deaths, according to the Aviation Safety Network's website.

Lion Air is currently banned from flying to Europe due to broader safety lapses in the Indonesian airline industry that have long plagued the country. Last year, a Russian-made Sukhoi Superjet-100 slammed into a volcano during a demonstration flight, killing all 45 people on board.

Indonesia is one of Asia's most rapidly expanding airline markets, but is struggling to provide qualified pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers and updated airport technology to ensure safety.

Lion Air, a private company which started flying in 2000, signed a $24 billion deal last month to buy 234 Airbus planes, the biggest order ever for the French aircraft maker. It also gave Boeing its largest-ever order when it finalized a deal for 230 planes last year. The aircraft will be delivered from 2014 to 2026 as the airline positions itself to take on AirAsia, which dominates budget travel in the region.

Bali crash rings alarm bell on pace of Indonesian aviation sector's growth

Experts warn a lack of experienced flight crews may be a ticking time bomb for safety as Indonesian air travel grows at 20pc a year



Lion Air's Boeing jet split in two in a crash after the plane overshot the runway in Bali on Saturday.

(AFP) The dramatic crash of a Lion Air plane into the sea off Bali has raised fears that Indonesia's fastest-growing carrier may be putting passenger safety at risk with its huge expansion plans, analysts said yesterday.

Experts also warned that Saturday's crash, in which all 108 people on board survived, highlighted a "ticking time bomb" under the country's aviation sector - a lack of experienced crew to meet rapidly growing demand.


"I do question whether Lion Air's exponential growth ... will put safety at risk," an analyst at Hong Kong-based consultancy Aspire Aviation, Daniel Tsang, said.

"When an airline is too focused on growth and puts an emphasis on cutting costs, safety could be compromised."

An aviation expert at the University of Indonesia, Wawan Mulyawan, who specialises in crew health issues, said the cause of the accident could have been pilot exhaustion. Pilots becoming overworked and rundown could become more of an issue for the country's aviation sector as a whole, he said, as airlines expanded rapidly and there were not enough qualified crew.

"Yesterday's crash was the tip of the iceberg," Mulyawan said. "If the number of pilots cannot grow as fast as the number of planes and flights, we can expect worse cases in the future. It's a ticking time bomb."