Lion Air, which flies to 126 destinations in Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and China, is the second largest low-cost carrier in south-east Asia after Malaysia’s AirAsia, and is growing fast.
The low-cost carrier has a poor safety record for many years. It was banned by the EU from flying over European airspace along with other Indonesian airlines in 2007, and the ban was only lifted in 2016.
Since 2002, Lion Air has had more than a dozen major incidents or accidents. The most deadly was in 2004 when a plane overshot the runway and crashed into a cemetery in Surakarta, killing 31 people.
In 2013, a Lion Air flight with more than 100 people on board crashed into the water off Bali’s Ngurah Rai airport. All on board survived with a few minor injuries, despite the fuselage breaking in half.
The following year, a similar crash saw a Lion Air plane land short of the Bali runway, injuring 46 people, 4 seriously. That crash was blamed on pilot error.
Lion Air plane crash: Six bodies found in sea off Jakarta, Indonesia
Rescue workers have retrieved six bodies from the sea where the Indonesian passenger plane crashed close to the capital Jakarta on Monday 13 minutes after takeoff.
