JAKARTA — The sight of passengers swimming ashore from the wreckage of a Lion Air plane that missed a runway and crashed into the ocean off the Indonesian resort island of Bali on April 13 was not the only thing about the airline that drew big headlines this year.
The crash, which did not kill anyone but resulted in dramatic photos of passengers’ being rescued from the water, came a month after the airline, the biggest Indonesian carrier, turned heads with its second major expansion deal in three years, ordering a record 234 planes March 18 from Airbus for $24 billion.
The purchase underscored the explosive growth of Lion Air as it struggled with a troublesome safety record, raising wider questions about air safety in Indonesia, one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets. The European Union has banned Lion Air from flying there, and the crash was one of several accidents involving the airline since it began commercial operations in 2000 with a single leased Boeing 737-200.
In 2004, a Lion Air jet crashed in Central Java Province, killing 25 people. In 2002, one of its planes crashed on takeoff in Riau Province on Sumatra Island, and in 2006, a Lion Air jet crashed after landing in Yogyakarta, in Central Java, although no one was killed in the 2002 and 2006 incidents. The low-cost carrier has also had multiple incidents in which planes have skidded off, run off or overrunn airport runways.
In addition, four Lion Air pilots were arrested by the police in separate incidents in 2011 and 2012 for possession of drugs including ecstasy pills and crystal methamphetamine.
But that spotty safety record has not curbed the ambitions of Rusdi Kirana, Lion’s media-shy founder and chief executive. On Thursday, Lion Air introduced the full-service Batik Air, which will serve both domestic and international routes. Despite being a low-cost carrier, Lion Air already dominates Indonesia’s domestic air travel market, with a 40 percent share, according to analysts.
Some people in the industry say Indonesia’s regulation of its airlines has failed to keep pace with the sector’s growth.
“Last I checked, we had less than 200 air safety inspectors for the whole country,” said Danang Parikesit, a transportation expert and president of the Indonesia Transportation Society. “You can imagine that with traffic increasing by 20 percent a year for the last five years and you have less than 200 safety inspectors? What do you expect?”
He said the country’s focus should be on improving regulation of the aviation industry, instead of blaming operators when an accident occurs.
“At the end of the day, it’s the regulator that allows the conditions in which the operators operate,” he said “We have already asked the Indonesian government to increase the capacity of safety inspections and the inspection programs, given that the growth of the airline industry in Indonesia is quite high.”
The Bali crash inquiry, led by the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee, is continuing as investigators look into claims by the pilot that he felt the aircraft being dragged down by wind, indicating a possible case of wind shear or a microburst. Industry analysts said that whatever the cause, the crash raised some worrying red flags.
“It’s certainly a concern, given that it was a brand-new airplane,” said one aviation analyst based in Southeast Asia who insisted on anonymity because his organization did not publicly comment on safety issues regarding individual commercial airlines.
Herry Bhakti, Indonesia’s director-general of civil aviation, urged the public not to jump to conclusions about Lion Air’s safety practices and competence until the investigation was complete. He also suggested that politics might be driving criticism of regulators as the country prepared for elections in 2014.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/business/global/02iht-lionair02.html?partner=rss&emc=rss