Jakarta [Indonesia]: Indonesia has directed all Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft belonging to commercial airlines in the country to undergo an inspection in the wake of the tragedy involving Lion Air flight 610 that killed all 189 people on board.
Captain Avirianto, an Indonesian Transportation Ministry official, told CNN that Lion Air is currently in possession of 11 of one of Boeing’s most advanced airplanes. National airline Garuda Indonesia has one Boeing 737 Max 8 aricraft. “We have inspected Garuda last night while Lion is still in progress,” Avirianto stated. He further said that the three of Lion Air’s airplanes will undergo inspection by the end of Tuesday, while the other eight will be inspected soon.
Daniel Putut Adi Kuncoro, the managing director of Lion Air group, also confirmed the ongoing inspection of the aircraft in their fleet, saying, “We are waiting for their results. We will follow what the regulator tells us to do.” Meanwhile, drones and sonar technology has been deployed the Java Sea to search for the remains of the downed plane which crashed on Monday, with the aircraft’s fuselage and flight data recorder yet to be retrieved. The search operations were spread over a 400 nautical mile area on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, police confirmed that 24 body bags have been transferred from the crash site for post-mortem evaluations, adding that DNA samples from as many as 132 family members of the passengers of the ill-fated flight have been taken to verify identities. According to the region’s national search and rescue agency Basarnas, the aircraft disappeared from radar just 13 minutes after takeoff. The cause of the crash is yet to be ascertained.