All safe after Indonesia plane skids into sea

14/04/2013| IslamWeb

All 108 passengers and crew survived when a Lion Air plane missed the runway on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali and landed in the sea.

More than 40 people were treated for injuries including broken legs, head wounds and shock, though most were discharged from hospital on the day of the crash, hospital officials said.

The brand new Boeing 737 had flown from Bandung, in West Java, and was about to land at Denpasar airport on Saturday.

"It probably failed to reach the runway and fell into the sea," said Lion Air spokesman Edward Sirait.

He would not comment on the cause of the crash. An investigation has been launched.

"The plane plunged into the sea at high speed," said passenger Ignatius Juan Sinduk from his hospital bed in Denpasar where he was being treated for breathing difficulties after his chest was injured in the crash.

"Everybody screamed and water suddenly surged into the plane. Passengers panicked and scrambled for life jackets. Some passengers fell, some ran into others, it was chaos.

"I managed to grab one [lifejacket] and slowly swam out of the plane and to the shore."

Pilot 'fit to fly'

Budget carrier Lion Air is Indonesia's largest airline and is rapidly expanding.
The pilot had flown for Lion Air for six years and was fit to fly, Sirait added. The airline has been randomly drug testing its crews since several pilots were arrested.
Indonesia has been struggling to improve its civil air safety after a string of deadly accidents.

In 2007, Lion Air was among a number of Indonesian airlines banned by the EU for lax safety standards. The ban was progressively lifted, starting in 2009.

The runway at Bali international airport starts next to the sea.

Television footage showed the jet floating in shallow waters with a fractured fuselage and passengers in the water with life jackets.

According to the Aviation Safety Network, Lion Air planes have been involved in six accidents since 2002, four of them involving Boeing 737s. Only one of them, according to the site, resulted in fatalities.

PHOTO CAPTION

In this photo released by Indonesian Police, the wreckage of a crashed Lion Air plane sits on the water near the airport in Bali, Indonesia on Saturday, April 13, 2013.

Al-Jazeera