Indonesia plane crash: All 189 passengers presumed dead in latest aviation disaster

All 189 people on board a passenger jet that crashed into the sea off Indonesia are presumed dead in what is set to become one of the worst aviation disasters in the country's history.
The Lion Air flight between Jakarta and an island off Sumatra went down on Monday morning, with the passenger jet having lost contact just 13 minutes after take-off.
Indonesian search and rescue officials have recovered body parts from the scene of the crash, in addition to ID cards, bags, mangled mobile phones and other belongings.
They have also retrieved pieces of the aircraft, although the main body of the plane has not yet been found and they are not expecting any of those on board to have survived.
Operation director Bambang Suryo Aji told reporters: "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."

Among those on board were crew, an Italian national, one baby, two children, and around 20 members of staff from the Indonesian finance ministry, but so far only one of the pilots has been named.
The Indian Embassy named one of them as Indian citizen Bhavye Suneja, whose parents are en route to Indonesia from their home in New Delhi.
He and his co-pilot had 11,000 flying hours between them
Lion Air chief executive Edward Sirait admitted that the plane involved in the crash had experienced a "technical problem" on a previous flight, but said it had been resolved "according to procedure".
He did not specify what the issue was and the airline insisted that the plane was airworthy when it left Jakarta at 6.20am, bound for Pangkal Pinang, on the island of Bangka, about an hour later.
But the Boeing 737-800 was cleared to return to its departure airport after making a request just two or three minutes after take-off, before the crew of a tug boat nearby told authorities they saw it falling from the sky.
Yusuf Latif, a spokesperson for the search and rescue agency, said it crashed into water "about 30 to 40 metres deep".
Relatives gathered at Pangkal Pinang airport and the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency headquarters in the capital in the hope of good news, but have been told it is likely all those on board are dead.
Feni, who uses a single name, said her soon-to-be-married sister was on the flight and had been planning to meet relatives in Pangkal Pinang.
She said: "We are here to find any information about my younger sister, her fiance, her in-law to be and a friend of them.
"We don't have any information. No one provided us with any information that we need. We're confused. We hope that our family is still alive."
 More than 300 people, including soldiers, police, divers and fishermen are involved in the ongoing search, which is expected to last for at least seven days.
Pope Francis has expressed his condolences to those affected, offering "the assurance of his prayers for all those who have died and for those who mourn their loss".
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has met relatives of those on-board, and urged people to "keep on praying" as search teams continue their work.







The accident is the first involving the fuel-efficient Boeing 737 MAX model, powered by two CFM LEAP-1B engines, which was first delivered to Lion Air in 2017.
Aviation tracking service Flight Radar said the plane that crashed had been delivered to the budget airline in August.
The crash will be a huge blow to the reputation of Lion Air, which until 2016 had been banned by the EU from flying to member states due to fears over aviation regulation in Indonesia.