"We are confident of being able to recover all the victims," Head of the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) Muhammad Syaugi remarked here on Monday.
He noted that Basarnas had extended the period of evacuation operation for three days to find the victims.
"We do not give up and do our best to find the victims," Syaugi stated.
Personnel and equipment were deployed to the Lion Air crash site in an effort to find the victims.
The Basarnas team has, so far, sent 138 body bags, containing parts of the victims` bodies, to the Police Hospital in Kramat Jati, East Jakarta.
The Lion Air flight JT 610 crashed into the Java Sea off Tanjung Karawang, West Java, 13 minutes after taking off from Cengkareng`s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport at 6:20 a.m. local time on its way to Pangkalpinang on Monday (Oct 29).
The Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft, carrying 189 people on board, reportedly lost contact at 6:33 a.m. local time.
In connection with the related authorities` endeavor to unearth the causes of the Lion Air plane crash, Indonesian divers had succeeded in finding the ill-fated Lion Air plane`s flight data recorder, or the plane`s first black box, on Nov 1.
In addition, a diver died during an operation to evacuate victims of the crashed Lion Air flight JT-610 in the Karawang waters, West Java, on Friday.
The diver, identified as Syachrul Anto, died due to decompression, Commander of the Search and Rescue Task Force Colonel Isswarto stated here on Saturday.
"He dove longer than he had to. According to the schedule, divers had to come up at 4 p.m. WIB (Western Indonesia Standard Time), but he did it 30 minutes later," he revealed.
The body of the ill-fated diver has been handed to his family.
Spokesman for the National Search and Rescue Agency Yusuf Latief confirmed Anto`s death but stopped short of revealing the cause of the diver`s death.
Reporting by Martha Herlinawati
Editing by Azis Kurmala, Rahmad Nasution
Reporter: antara
Editor: Bustanuddin
Copyright © ANTARA 2018
