New details emerge about doomed Lion Air jet that plunged into the sea

FAN Editor

Probe says Lion Air plane was not airworthy

Jakarta, Indonesia — Navy divers have located the cockpit voice recorder of a Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea in October, Indonesian officials said Monday, in a possible boost to the accident investigation. Ridwan Djamaluddin, a deputy maritime minister, told reporters that remains of some of the 189 people who died in the crash were also discovered at the seabed location.

“We got confirmation this morning from the National Transportation Safety Committee’s chairman,” Djamaluddin said.

A spokesman for the Indonesian navy’s western fleet, Lt. Col. Agung Nugroho, said divers using high-tech equipment found the voice recorder beneath 8 meters (26 feet) of seabed mud. The plane crashed in waters 98 feet deep.

The 2-month-old Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet plunged into the Java Sea just minutes after taking off from Jakarta on Oct. 29, killing all 189 people on board.

The Reuters news agency points out the cockpit voice recorder is one of two so-called black boxes crucial to the investigation of the plane crash.

The cockpit data recorder was recovered within days and showed that the jet’s airspeed indicator had malfunctioned on its last four flights.

The Lion Air crash was the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since 1997, when 234 people died on a Garuda flight near Medan. In December 2014, an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea, killing all 162 on board.

Lion Air is one of Indonesia’s youngest airlines but has grown rapidly, flying to dozens of domestic and international destinations. It has been expanding aggressively in Southeast Asia, a fast-growing region of more than 600 million people.

This is a breaking story. Please check back for latest updates.

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