Lion Air said in a statement on Monday that the captain of the flight, Capt. Bhavye Suneja, had more than 6,000 flying hours and that the co-pilot, who goes by the single name of Harvino, had more than 5,000 flying hours.
Air travel is an especially convenient way to travel around Indonesia, an archipelago nation of more than 13,000 islands.
Passenger traffic in the country tripled from 2005 to 2017, to nearly 97 million, according to the CAPA-Center for Aviation, a consultancy based in Australia. As of last year, Lion Air controlled 51 percent of the domestic market.
But along with that rapid growth, Indonesia’s airline industry has had a troubled safety record.
Notably, in 2014, AirAsia Flight 8501 crashed on the way to Singapore from the Indonesian city of Surabaya. All seven crew and 155 passengers were killed.
Monday’s crash was the latest of at least 15 episodes involving Lion Air since it began operations in 2000.
In 2004, a Lion Air flight from Jakarta to Surabaya hydroplaned, overshot the runway and crashed into a cemetery as it stopped in the city of Surakarta, which is colloquially known as Solo. The crash killed 25 people on board.
And in 2013, a Lion Air plane missed a runway and crashed into the ocean off the Indonesian resort island of Bali, forcing passengers to swim ashore. That crash, which did not kill anyone, came a month after the airline announced a $24 billion order for 234 Airbus planes.
Four Lion Air pilots were also arrested in separate incidents in 2011 and 2012 for the possession of drugs, including ecstasy and crystal methamphetamine.
Still, in 2016, the United States Federal Aviation Administration restored Indonesia to its Category 1 safety rating, nearly a decade after lowering it to Category 2. The latter category indicates that a country lacks either laws that allow it to comply with minimum international standards, or technical expertise, trained personnel or various other procedures.
