JAKARTA: All 189 passengers and crew aboard a crashed Indonesian Lion Air jet were likely killed in the accident, rescue officials said Monday, as they announced they had found human remains and would continue the grim search through the night.
The Boeing-737 MAX, which went into service just months ago, vanished from radar 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta, plunging into the Java Sea moments after it had asked to return to the Indonesian capital.
Websites that display flight data showed the plane speeding up as it suddenly lost altitude in the minutes before it disappeared, with authorities saying witnesses saw the jet plunge into the water.
“My prediction is that nobody survived because the victims that we found, their bodies were no longer intact and it’s been hours so it is likely 189 people have died,” search and rescue agency operational director Bambang Suryo Aji told reporters.
Some 40 divers are part of about 150 personnel at the scene, authorities said, with the plane wreckage some 30 to 40 metres deep in the water. (AGENCIES)
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