Traffic jam saves Indonesian man from Lion Air plane crash
Indonesian misses Lion Air flight that crashed, likely killing all passengers, crew
JAKARTA Indonesia's notorious traffic jams have elicited curses from many who been stuck for hours in the sweltering heat.
Indonesian Sony Setiawan will be not one of them because the gridlock caused him to miss his flight, saving his life.
All 189 passengers and crew aboard the Indonesian Lion Air flight JT610 that he was supposed to take yesterday were "likely" killed in the accident, the search and rescue agency said, as it announced it had found human remains.
The Boeing 737, which went into service just months ago, vanished from the radar 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta, plunging into the Java Sea moments after it had asked to be allowed to return to the Indonesian capital.
Mr Setiawan was part of a team of Finance Ministry officers of which around 20 were on board the plane.
He and his colleagues take this flight on a weekly basis.
But while his friends battled their way through Jakarta's daily congestion to make the flight, Mr Setiawan found himself stuck on a toll road for hours.
"I usually take (flight) JT610 - my friends and I always take this plane," Mr Setiawan told AFP.
"I don't know why the traffic at the toll road was so bad. I usually arrive in Jakarta at 3am but this morning I... missed the flight. I know my friends were on that flight."
He said he was informed about his lucky escape only after he arrived in Pangkal Pinang on another flight at 9.40am.
"The first time I heard I cried. I know my friends were on that flight," said Mr Setiawan, who is from Bandung in West Java.
"My family was in shock and my mother cried, but I told them I was safe, so I just have to be grateful."
Lion Air said the plane had gone into service only in August.
Websites that display flight data showed the plane speeding up as it suddenly lost altitude in the minutes before it disappeared.
Search and rescue agency operational 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 has been hours so it is likely 189 people have died."
Some 40 divers are part of about 150 personnel at the scene, the authorities said, with the plane in water 30m to 40m deep.
Earlier, footage apparently filmed at the scene of the crash showed a slick of fuel on the surface of the water and pictures showed what appeared to be an emergency slide and bits of wreckage bearing Lion Air's logo.
Images filmed at Pangkal Pinang's main airport showed families of passengers crying and hugging each other, with some yelling "Oh God".
"This morning he called asking about our youngest son," said a sobbing woman, Ermayati, referring to her 45-year-old husband Muhammed Syafii, who was on board.
The pilot and co-pilot had more than 11,000 hours of flying time between them and had recent medical checkups and drug testing, the authorities said.
Lion Air chief executive Edward Sirait said the plane earlier had an unspecified technical issue fixed in Bali before it was flown back to Jakarta.
"Engineers in Jakarta received notes and did another repair before it took off" yesterday, he said, calling it "normal procedure".
Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said yesterday afternoon that so far, there have been no reports of any Singaporeans being on board the flight. - AFP, THE STRAITS TIMES
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