Something amiss in Lion Air Flight take-off, shows data

The ill-fated Lion Air flight JT610, an almost new Boeing 737 MAX 8 that crashed into the sea on Monday had a weird take-off from Jakarta, the flight data showed.

Data from FlightRadar24 showed the first sign of something going wrong with the plane in nearly two minutes into the flight, when it reached 2,000 feet.

It then descended more than 500 feet before climbing again to 5,000 feet, reaching to 5,450 feet before descending again.

The plane gained speed in the final moments and reached 345 knots before the connection was lost when it was at 3,650 feet.

The total flight time was 13 minutes before the plane carrying 188 people on board crashed into the sea.

The same flight a day earlier reached nearly 24,800 feet within 13 minutes into the flight, the data showed.

The Lion Air flight took off from Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta international airport at 6.20 a.m. After a short flight, it was due to arrive in Pangkal Pinang an hour later. But it lost contact at 6.33 a.m.

Its last recorded position was about 15 km north of the Indonesian coast, according to a Google Maps reference of its last coordinates from data from Flightradar24.

According to media reports, the aircraft had been in operation since August and was airworthy.

--IANS

na/bg