The Lion Air plane crash that is believed to have killed all 189 people on board has raised questions about the airline's not-so-impressive track record with safety and who the driving forces behind the company are. Despite its popularity in Indonesia, where it flies domestically, Lion Air has a string of safety and security incidents dotting its 18-year history. But what most Australians might not know is that Lion Air's parent company has another airline — one that operates two flights a day between Australia and Indonesia. A Lion Air Boeing 737 crashed in the sea after overshooting the runway at Denpasar's main airport in April, 2013. ( Twitter So, who owns Lion Air? The airline is part of the Lion Air Group, which owns several other airlines, including: Wings Air — a domestic low-cost Indonesian airline Wings Air — a domestic low-cost Indonesian airline Batik Air — a full-service domestic and international airline marketed to middle-class passengers Batik Air — a full-service domestic and international airline marketed to middle-class passengers Lion Bizjet — provides 24-hour private jet charters Lion Bizjet — provides 24-hour private jet charters Malindo Air — based in Malaysia Malindo Air — based in Malaysia Thai Lion Air — based in Thailand The group also owns a freight business called Lion Parcel, and hospitality business in Lion Hotel and Plaza, in Indonesia's north-west Sulawesi province. The CEO of Lion Group, Rusdi Kirana, started the company with his brother Kusnan in 1999 with $1.2 million capital. Before the Indonesian-Chinese brothers started the Lion Air Group, Mr Rusdi started out his career as a typewriter salesman and then a baking-ingredients salesman. The brothers then ran a firm helping travellers to get passports and visas — a venture that let them to set up a travel agency named Lion Tour where Mr Rusdi's job was greeting passengers at arrival gates. Upon realising the rise of online ticketing would put them out of business, the brothers decided to pool their savings and buy their first plane. Forbes reported about $900,000 of that initial capital was used to lease his first plane, a Boeing 737-300. To save money, Mr Rusdi designed the airline logo and the stewardess uniforms. Now, Lion Air has more than 110 aircraft and flies more than 180 routes. Last year, the brothers were estimated by Forbes to be worth $1.4 billion. In 2014, Mr Rusdi became the deputy chairman of the National Awakening Party (PKB). On being a Christian in a Muslim party, Mr Rusdi told Forbes: "As a businessman I need access to the decision-makers, and it is hard to get that if I wasn't associated with a political party." Mr Rusdi was named Indonesia's ambassador to Malaysia in 2017 after serving as an adviser to Indonesian President Joko Widodo. Sorry, this video has expired Former aviation consultant and now Nauru Airlines Corporation chairman says training, oversight is vital to safety But the airline hasn't exactly been a shining success From 2002 to 2013, there were at least 19 incidents involving the Lion Group in Indonesia. The most serious include: January 14, 2002: Lion Air Flight 386 crashes after trying to take off. Everyone survived but the entire aircraft was written off. Lion Air Flight 386 crashes after trying to take off. Everyone survived but the entire aircraft was written off. November 30, 2004: Lion Air Flight 538 crashes in Surakarta, killing 25 people. Lion Air Flight 538 crashes in Surakarta, killing 25 people. March 4, 2006: Lion Air Flight 8987 crashed after landing and skidded off the runway. No one died but the plane was written off. Lion Air Flight 8987 crashed after landing and skidded off the runway. No one died but the plane was written off. April 13, 2013: Lion Air Flight 907 overshot a landing and crashed into the water near Denpasar. Passengers and crew were evacuated. Lion Air was banned from flying to the United States and the European Union in 2007, but both bans have since been lifted. Does it fly to Australia? Nope. But Batik Air, another airline owned by the Lion Air Group, currently flies between Perth and Denpasar. Malindo Air and Thai Lion Air also offer various flight routes between Australia, Thailand and Malaysia. We know that Batik Air planes go through the same maintenance facility on Batam Island that Lion Air does. As former South-East Asia correspondent Samantha Hawley said in her analysis, Batik Air is Lion Air, just with different branding. But Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) said that doesn't mean Lion Air Group's other airlines should be banned from Australia, or even investigated. A CASA spokesperson told us the airlines are considered separate companies — regardless of their parent company — and because Lion Air has no flights in or out of Australia, they have no reason or jurisdiction to investigate any of Lion Air Group's other subsidiary airlines. Nevertheless, the spokesperson said CASA was watching the events closely and with great interest, but said it was too early to speculate about the cause of the latest crash considering the search is still on for the wreckage. The former aviation consultant and now chairman of Nauru Airlines Corporation, Trevor Jensen, said any gaps in management and safety procedures has to be investigated. "When you look at the history, you've got to ask questions. When you have consistent failure, as we've seen, the questions need to be asked," Mr Jensen told News Breakfast. Questions have also been raised about the plane, an almost-brand-new Boeing 737 MAX 8, which was flown for the first time on August 15, and was certified as airworthy by the airline before Monday's flight by an engineer who was a specialist in Boeing models. Lion Air chief executive Edward Sirait said that plane had encountered another issue on its previous flight from Bali to Jakarta, but said that has been "resolved according to procedure". Regarding the crash, Mr Sirait said: "We are also confused about the why, since it was a new plane". Mr Jensen said investigators would be sure to look at the air-data system.<doc-sep>Indonesia's National Rescue Team at the crash site of a Lion Air plane in Bali, in 2013. The plane carrying more than 100 passengers and crew overshot a runway and crashed into the sea, injuring nearly two dozen people. Photo: AP<doc-sep>Jane Onyanga-Omara and Thomas Maresca USA TODAY Divers, drones and sonar equipment were deployed Tuesday in the recovery operation for the Lion Air plane and the 189 people it was carrying after the aircraft crashed into the Java Sea on Monday, amid reports that it malfunctioned the previous day. Lion Air said in a statement that rescuers sent 24 body bags to a police hospital in the Indonesian capital Jakarta for identification and that the airline flew more than 180 grieving relatives of those aboard to the capital. It said the recovery of the passengers, crew and the 2-month-old Boeing plane was ongoing. Specialist ships and a remotely operated underwater vehicle were searching for the plane’s hull and flight recorder, which authorities believe will not take long to find because of the relatively shallow 115 foot depth of the waters where the plane crashed. Flight JT 610 took off at 6:20 a.m. local time Monday and crashed just 13 minutes later. The flight was bound for the city of Pangkal Pinang on Bangka – Indonesia's ninth-largest island – when it lost contact. Its pilot had requested clearance to return to the airport just 2-3 minutes after takeoff, which aviation experts said indicated a technical problem. The disaster has reignited concerns about safety in Indonesia’s fast-growing aviation industry, which was recently removed from European Union and U.S. blacklists. The president of Lion Air, Edward Sirait, told reporters Monday that the plane had a technical issue on its previous flight but said it had been resolved according to the manufacturer’s procedures. He did not provide any specific details on that incident. Two passengers on the plane’s previous flight from Bali to Jakarta described numerous issues that caused concern. Indonesian TV presenter Conchita Caroline said in an online post that boarding of the flight Sunday was delayed by more than an hour and when the plane was being towed, a technical problem forced it to return to its parking space. She said passengers sat in the cabin without air conditioning for at least 30 minutes listening to an “unusual” engine roar, while some children vomited from the heat, until staff faced with rising anger let them disembark. After about 30 minutes of passengers waiting on the tarmac, they were told to board again while an engine was checked. Caroline said she queried a staff member but was met with a defensive response. “He just showed me the flight permit that he had signed and said he said the problem had been settled,” she said. “He treated me like a passenger full of disturbing dramas even though what I was asking represented friends and confused tourists who didn’t understand Indonesian.” Another passenger, Alon Soetanto, told TVOne the plane dropped suddenly several times in the first few minutes of its flight. “About three to eight minutes after it took off, I felt like the plane was losing power and unable to rise. That happened several times during the flight,” he said. “We felt like in a roller coaster. Some passengers began to panic and vomit.” His account is consistent with data from flight-tracking sites that show erratic speed, altitude and direction in the minutes after takeoff. A similar pattern is also seen in data pinged from Monday’s fatal flight. Safety experts cautioned, however, that the data must be checked for accuracy against the plane’s so-called black boxes. The Boeing 737 MAX series has only been in commercial operation since 2016, and this is the first crash involving the aircraft, a single-aisle plane used for short-haul flights. The plane, which has a capacity of up to 210 passengers, has received 4,783 orders by airlines, with 219 fulfilled as of September 2018, according to company data. Lion Air, which was founded in 1999, has had some safety and maintenance issues in the past and was banned from flying into European airspace from 2007 until 2016. The U.S. lifted a decade long ban in 2016. The airline had a crash in 2004 that killed 25 and has had a number of other incidents, including a crash landing in the sea near Bali in which all 108 passengers survived. The Australian government announced on Monday that it was instructing all government officials and contractors not to fly Lion Air until the findings of the crash investigation are clear. Contributing: The Associated Press<doc-sep>On Monday morning, Lion Air Flight JT 610 crashed into the Java Sea shortly after takeoff from Jakarta. Rescuers were still searching for the wreckage on Tuesday. The crash is believed to have killed all 189 people on board. The budget airline is based in Jakarta and is Indonesia's largest domestic carrier. The popular airline, which began operations in 2000 and flies primarily throughout Southeast Asia, has expanded over the years. In 2011, it placed a $22 billion order with Boeing to expand its fleet. And in 2018, the company confirmed its order to buy 50 Boeing 737 MAX 10 narrow body jets worth $6.24 billion. Monday's crash, which happened just 13 minutes after takeoff, marked the first critical incident involving the new 737 Max jets. Despite its grip on the market, Lion Air has been criticized in the past over poor operational management and safety measures, which led to its exclusion from operating in European airspace in 2007 because of safety concerns. That ban was lifted in June 2016. And on Sunday, just a day before the fatal crash, the same jet experienced technical issues with its altitude and airspeed readings, forcing the captain to hand over control to the first officer, according to logs obtained by the BBC. Monday's crash was the latest in a string of at least 15 safety incidents involving Lion Air over the last decade and a half.<doc-sep>
Shortly after a Lion Air passenger jet crashed into the sea off Jakarta yesterday, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued a warning to its staff. Australian Government officials and contractors were ordered not to fly on Lion Air or their subsidiary airlines. "The decision will be reviewed when the findings of the crash investigation are clear," the warning states on the SmartTraveller.gov.au website. Loading Lion Air Group is made up of Lion Air and its subsidiaries Batik Air and Wings Air. Batik Air has operated two flights a day between Perth and Denpasar in Bali since opening the route in June 2017. The Australian public has not been given a similar warning by DFAT and may not be aware that Batik Air is a subsidiary of Lion Air. Batik Air planes are serviced at the same Lion Air facility on Batam Island and flown by pilots employed by the Lion Air Group — Batik Air is Lion Air, just with different branding. Indonesia's troubled aviation sector As a journalist living in Indonesia, flying Lion Air was never a choice, but a necessity. The role requires frequent air travel and there are limits to picking and choosing the airline of preference when travelling around the massive archipelago. The sadness in the Lion Air crash is that that no-one would really be shocked by it — the Indonesian aviation sector has a bad reputation for good reason. And will the latest crash change anything? Simply put, no. Not in a nation where the aviation watchdog, the Director General of Civil Aviation, has proved time and again that it either cannot, will not, or does not know how to improve safety standards. Sorry, this video has expired Grieving relatives arrive at a crisis centre in Jakarta In 2015 I and a team from the Foreign Correspondent program began investigating the country's troubled aviation sector. We toured the Lion Air maintenance facility at its Batam Island base — a visually-impressive centre for an airline group experiencing enormous growth. The Lion Air Group plans to have 700 jets by 2030, a massive expansion thanks to a huge jump in passenger numbers each year of about 15 per cent. The company has done a lot to improve its safety record, including appointing international consultants, and ground has been made. Lion Air was removed from the European Union blacklist in 2016, although it still only operates in and around South-East Asia. It also had its safety record upgraded by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) this year. A history of safety concerns While it is unclear yet what caused the three-month-old Boeing 737 MAX 8 to crash, the deaths of 189 people has once again shone a spotlight on the airline's safety. The same jet had experienced technical problems during a flight from Bali to Jakarta the night before the fatal crash. Lion Air will need to explain why it was not grounded. Between 2002 to 2013 there have been at least 19 incidents involving the Lion Air Group in Indonesia. In one 2013 incident a pilot overran the runway in Bali and ended up in the ocean — fortunately everyone survived. "Well of course there is always room for improvement, but we are committed to do it, we are committed," Group Safety and Quality director Jose Fernandez, who was recruited from Spain to improve Lion Air's record, told Foreign Correspondent in 2015. It is up to Indonesia's aviation watchdog to change its culture and improve the standards across the sector, or air passengers will continue to be put at risk.