Lion Air crash: Delhi man Bhavye Suneja was captain of Indonesian passenger plane

New Delhi, Oct 29: A 30-year-old Delhi resident Bhavye Suneja was the captain of the ill-fated Indonesian Lion Air plane which crashed into the Java Sea Monday morning with 189 passengers on board, according to media reports.

Suneja who hailed from Delhi, according to his LinkedIn profile was employed with Lion Air since 2011 and had accumulated more than 6,000 flying hours, says an official statement from Lion Air. He initially was a trainee with Emirates for three months and currently resided in Jakarta with his wife.

The jet vanished from radar just 13 minutes after taking off from the Indonesian capital, plunging into the ocean.

Disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho tweeted pictures of debris, including what appeared to be an emergency slide and various parts of a smashed mobile phone.

Search and Rescue Agency spokesman Yusuf Latif said authorities were still searching for the remains of the plane, which lost contact with air traffic control around 6.30 am (2330 GMT), en route to Pangkal Pinang on the island of Bangka.

Indonesia relies heavily on air transport to connect its thousands of islands but has a poor aviation safety record and has suffered several fatal crashes in recent years.