With suspicion growing that human error was responsible for the Lion Air crash at the weekend, Transportation Minister EE Mangindaan said that bad weather might have prompted the pilot of the ill-fated flight to ditch his plane in the sea near Ngurah Rai International Airport.

Citing a weather report from the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), Mangindaan told a press briefing on Monday, that a plume of vertical cloud known as a cumulonimbus was recorded covering the island at the time of the incident.

Mangindaan added that officers in charge of air traffic control (ATC) at Ngurah Rai International Airport also reported that cloud and precipitation obscured the end of Runway 09, where Lion Air flight JT-960 was expected to land.

In spite of the weather conditions, Mangindaan said that it was too early to rule out any conclusion regarding the crash. '€œWhatever the cause might be, it'€™s too soon to draw conclusions now. We need to collect as many details as possible. Therefore, it'€™s better to let the KNKT [the National Transportation Safety Committee] finish the ongoing investigation,'€ the minister said.

The brand new Lion Air Boeing 737-800 aircraft, which had only 1,350 flying hours, was traveling from Bandung, West Java, to Bali, before it reached the runway at Ngurah Rai Airport.

All 108 passengers, including five minors and one infant, and crewmembers survived the crash. Four foreigners, comprising one French, one Belgian and two Singaporean citizens were among the passengers.

The flight took off from Bandung at 12:35 p.m. and crashed at 3:10 p.m. local time (2:10 p.m. Jakarta time). Data from the ministry said that the ATC at Ngurah Rai Airport issued permission to land for the aircraft at 3:08 p.m.

'€œThe ATC officers immediately hit the crash alarm according to procedure. At the same time, they also received reports from Garuda flight 415 that was in a holding position on the runway that an aircraft had ditched into the sea,'€ Mangindaan said. He added that officers from the airport watch room directly headed to the crash site as soon as they received the crash signal from the tower.

Rescue teams, including from the Air Force and Army, the police and the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) reached the location at 3:11 p.m. All passengers were evacuated by 3:55 p.m.

A number of local fishermen also joined the evacuation efforts.

The ministry'€™s report however failed to provide details on what happened during the two-minute interval between the permission to land being given and the plane ditching.

On Monday, the ministry also announced that the aircraft'€™s cockpit voice recorder (CVR) had been found and sent to the KNKT for further investigation.

The ministry has also decided to ground the pilot of the flight Capt. Mahlub Ghazali for two weeks pending the conclusion of preliminary investigations.

The ministry is also expected to conduct a special audit of Lion Air.

Mangindaan, however, declined to give more details about the audit.

Contacted separately, aviation expert and former investigator with the KNKT, Hanna Simatupang, said that human error was most likely responsible for the crash, as with most incidents in the country'€™s aviation industry.

'€œI think that the incident could have something to do with the pilot'€™s inability to deal with the wind shear,'€ Hanna said, referring to a powerful downdraft of wind from a storm cloud that is also known as a '€œmicroburst'€.

Hanna said that whatever the final conclusion from the probe into the crash the primary lesson was that the country'€™s aviation industry, and Lion Air in particular, had a poor safety record.

'€œWhatever the cause may be, I think this incident is a wake-up call for Lion Air to increase its safety management, which I think is still poor. The budget airline has recorded 12 incidents [in the past 10 years]. There must be something wrong with its internal systems,'€ he said.

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