by Rachel Ogbu
More than 100 people on board a plane that skidded off the runway into water have been rescued with some including the pilot, sustaining injuries.
The plane was seen floating above the water with rescue planes trying to get people out.
The plane had 172 passengers on board when it went down on the resort island of Bali on Saturday as the Lion Air plane was landing at Bali’s Ngurah Rai airport.
According to reports, Lion Air is on a list of carriers banned from operating in the European Union because of lax safety standard.
Photo: DailyMail
The Telegraph reports:
Bali Ngurah Rai, also known as Denpasar International Airport, is Indonesia’s third-busiest international airport. Its runway is 9,842 feet long, and it juts into the sea that separates Bali from Indonisia’s main island, Java.
Lion Air is Indonesia’s largest privately-run airline. Its 72 destinations are mostly in Indonesia, and the furthest it flies is to Saudi Arabia – a route mostly packed with domestic workers and construction labourers.
In 2004, a Lion Air jet crashed in Solo City, Indonesia, killing 25 people. And two years later, a Lion Air plane crashed at Juanda International Airport, but no one was killed.
The carrier has grown rapidly in recent years, trying to take advantage of the boom in jet travel in Asia, and just last month it reached a deal to buy 234 jets from Airbus. But some critics say that such rapid growth of Asian carriers has come at the expense of air safety in the region.
Watch clip of the rescue:
