Divers scouring the Java Sea have managed to fill around 10 body bags with human remains from a Lion Air flight that had crashed shortly after taking off from Jakarta with 189 people on board on Monday.
Speaking to mediapersons on Tuesday, government officials said the bodies discovered included a baby. Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee said there were 178 adult passengers, one child, two infants, two pilots and six cabin crew on board Lion Air flight JT 610. The human remains that had been recovered were being taken to Jakarta for DNA testing.
Indonesian officials said on Monday night the possibility of finding any survivors was slim given the nature of the Lion Air crash.
Divers were also able to find debris from the crashed Lion Air Boeing-737 MAX, though the aircraft's main fuselage remains underwater. Search teams were yet to find the aircraft's cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, which would help investigators learn about the state of the jet before it crashed.
Meanwhile, reports emerged that the crashed Lion Air Boeing-737 MAX had experienced a technical issue in a previous flight. This was thought to be related to discrepancies in the altitude-reading instruments on the displays of the captain and first officer.
Lion Air took delivery of the ill-fated Boeing-737 MAX in August. The airline had announced earlier this year, it was buying 50 Boeing-737 MAX jets in a deal worth $6.24 billion.
Boeing had briefly suspended global delivery of the 737 MAX in 2017 after it detected a problem with the aircraft's engines.
(With agency inputs)