Indonesian families offer prayer at sea one year after Lion Air crash

All 189 people on board the budget carrier’s Boeing 737 MAX jet died when it disappeared beneath the waves just minutes after take-off

Tuesday’s commemoration came days after crash investigators issued their final report into the disaster, setting out a number of failures

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A relative of a passenger who died in the Lion Air crash arrives in Jakarta after attending the one-year commemoration. Photo: Reuters

Published: 7:00pm, 29 Oct 2019Updated: 2:02pm, 30 Oct 2019

One year on from the Lion Air plane crash that killed 189 people, relatives and friends of victims held prayer vigils and cast flower petals into the Java Sea at the site where the Indonesian budget carrier’s Boeing 737 MAX jet disappeared beneath the waves.

The almost new Boeing aircraft had been flying from Jakarta to the town of Pangkal Pinang, on the Bangka-Belitung islands off Sumatra, when it crashed, just minutes after take-off.

Officials inspect an engine recovered from the site of the crashed Lion Air jet in November. Photo: AP

Tuesday’s commemoration came days after Indonesian investigators issued their final report into the disaster, setting out Boeing’s failure to identify risks in the design of cockpit software and recommending better training for Lion Air’s pilots.

Some members of victims’ families were taken by boat to the crash site off the West Java town of Karawang to throw petals into the sea, an act of tribute relatives also performed on November 8 last year.

In Pangkal Pinang, employees at the town’s tax office held special prayers for seven of their colleagues who died in the crash, according to office head Krisna Wiryawan.