In photos: Search teams recover personal items, wreckage from site of Indonesian plane crash
This handout photo taken by Pertamina Hulu Energy and released on October 29, 2018 via the Twitter account of Sutopo Purwo Nugroho from Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency shows personnel looking at items believed to be from the wreckage of the Lion Air flight JT 610, recovered off the coast of Indonesia’s Java island after the Boeing crashed into the sea. – The Indonesian Lion Air plane carrying 188 passengers and crew crashed into the sea on October 29, officials said, moments after it had asked to be allowed to return to Jakarta. (“AFP PHOTO / Pertamina Hulu Energy via National Disaster Mitigation Agency” –Members of a rescue team bring personal items and wreckage ashore at the port in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, on October 29, 2018, after they were recovered from the sea where Lion Air flight JT 610 crashed off the north coast earlier in the day. – A brand new Indonesian Lion Air plane carrying 189 passengers and crew crashed into the sea on October 29, officials said, moments after it had asked to be allowed to return to Jakarta. (Photo by RESMI MALAU / AFP)Members of a rescue team line up body bags at the port in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, on October 29, 2018, after being recovered from the sea where Lion Air flight JT 610 crashed off the north coast earlier in the day. – A brand new Indonesian Lion Air plane carrying 189 passengers and crew crashed into the sea on October 29, officials said, moments after it had asked to be allowed to return to Jakarta. (Photo by RESMI MALAU / AFP)Members of a rescue team bring ashore personal items and wreckage at the port in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, on October 29, 2018, after they were recovered from the sea where Lion Air flight JT 610 crashed off the north coast earlier in the day. – A brand new Indonesian Lion Air plane carrying 189 passengers and crew crashed into the sea on October 29, officials said, moments after it had asked to be allowed to return to Jakarta. (Photo by RESMI MALAU / AFP)
Various personal items and wreckage were recovered at the site of the Indonesian Lion Air jet which plunged into the Java Sea minutes after it took off from the Indonesian capital of Jakarta.
Divers also recovered some of the bodies of the victims as search and rescue operational director feared that all the 189 passengers and crew aboard the plane did not survive the crash Monday morning, October 29.
“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 in water about 30 to 40 meters deep.
The plane had been en route to Pangkal Pinang city, a jumping off point for beach-and-sun seeking tourists on nearby Belitung island, when it dropped out of contact around 6.30 am (2330 GMT).