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Rescue boats and diving teams are searching the sea after a new Lion Air plane carrying 189 people suddenly plunged fatally into the water yesterday, with little indication of what had gone wrong.

Reports said at least one child, two babies and 178 passengers were aboard, plus seven crew. All are feared dead.

The Lion Air Boeing 737-800 MAX was delivered to the airline on 15 August 2018 and reportedly had clocked up only 800 hours of flight time – brand new in aviation terms.

Flight JT610 was heading from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang (Indonesia) and was climbing out of Jakarta when it first lost height and then lost radar contact about 65 kilometres northeast of Jakarta over the Java Sea. Initial reports said no distress call had been made but Reuters reported the pilot had asked to return to the airport, mentioning technical difficulties, shortly before the crash.

“The [traffic] control allowed that, but then it lost contact,” the country’s air navigation authority spokesman said.

The 737, one of the safest, most dependable and widely used passenger aircraft, crashed just 13 minutes after takeoff. The weather was fine and the  cause is a mystery.

Rescue services reached the crash site yesterday and found debris, oil slicks, human remains and belongings including mobile phones.

Lion Air, which flies to 126 destinations in Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and China, is a fast-growing low-cost Indonesian carrier. It operates over 100 B737-800 and B737-900ER aircraft and its market share in Indonesia is almost twice that of Garuda.

Lion Air has had over a dozen major incidents or accidents since 2002, though yesterday’s crash is its worst ever, by far.

In 2004 a Lion Air plane crash-landed in a graveyard after overshooting the runway in Surakarta, central Java, killing 31 people.

In April 2013 a Lion Air plane missed the runway in Bali and landed in the sea, breaking the plane in half. In August the same year, the airline crashed one of its planes into a cow and skidded off a runway.

The cow mishap at Gorontalo airport on northern Sulawesi island occurred as the Lion Air passenger jet, a B737-900, was landing. As with the crashing-in-the-sea incident, Lion Air was very lucky in the cow strike. Three cows were wandering the runway and the pilot managed to avoid the other two. No passengers were killed or seriously injured in either accident.

Melbourne’s Age newspaper reported recently that Lion Air “appeared to have recently lifted its game” being given a top safety ranking by the International Civil Aviation Organisation earlier this year and an upgrade to the top safety ranking by airline rating agency AirlineRatings.com.

Written by Peter Needham