Search Extended for Lion Air Flight JT610 Victims

As the earlier extension of the deadline for the search for victims of Lion Air JT610 arrived today, Muhammad Syaugi, Head of Indonesia’s Search and Rescue Agency, Basarnas, announced a further extension, saying, “We have extended the operation for three more days. This operation has been running for 10 days and the results from combing the sea surface and the sea bed are declining, therefore the resources of Basarnas should be sufficient.” Other departments that have been involved in search efforts like the police and the military will not continue. So far, the search had intensified before the realization of the first deadline extension in the hopes of finding the second black box of the aircraft, as analysis of the data retrieved from the first one is currently in progress. It was not known whether the damage sustained by the first black box would have corrupted the data stored on it, or to what extent.

As on date, the 44 victims have been identified from 186 body bags that were filled with the remains of the victims of this air crash. There were a total of 189 passengers and crew on board flight JT610 when it went down into the sea off the coast of Java, none of whom survived. Basarnas will continue the search and recovery operations with its current contingent of 60 divers and 4 ships.

The new Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft that was delivered to Lion Air is being investigated for any inherent malfunctions, as the aircraft had already registered a fault in one of its “angle of attack” sensors that had been previously replaced when the aircraft was operating on a Bali-Jakarta route, prior to this fateful flight.