No fatalities were reported after a new jet from Indonesia’s largest airline crashed into the water off the main airport on the resort island of Bali Saturday afternoon. All 101 passengers and seven crew members on the Lion Air flight were rescued, and around 45 people were injured, none of them seriously, reports the Associated Press.
Photographs show the Boeing 737 sitting on the shallow water off Denpasar airport with a large crack in its fuselage. Although initial reports said the plane appeared to have overshot the runway, a Lion Air spokesman later said it “apparently failed to reach the runway and fell into the sea.” Lion Air is in the middle of a rapid expansion as it seeks to become one of the world’s largest airlines, points out the Wall Street Journal. Yet the accident is a reminder of Indonesia’s poor air-safety standards that has made the European Union place the country on its list of countries and carriers unsafe for flying.
