LA Flight Victims" Stories

The plane crashed into the Java Sea.

Among passengers of Lion were regulars of the flight (penglaju).

The flight was frequently taken by those who commute between Jakarta and Pinang.

The flight was

The flight is the earliest on Monday.

The flight is convenient as/because ..

It allows them to spend the weekend with their families in Jakarta before returning to work the following Monday.

They are civil servants who are assigned to Pinang.

Employees of the tax office were among the passengers of the crashed plane.

The took the flight so often that ..

They were purchasing airplanes in installments.

Other passengers caught the flight to go back to their hometown after ..

They visited their parents or going on a quick weekend getaway in Jakarta.

Others were aboard the plane for a quick business trip.

Family and friends of some of the victims of the air crash have spoken with me.

Below are their faces and stories.


Paul Ayorbaba

He was an employee at a Jakarta-based shipping company.

It was a position that often forced him to leave his wife and 3 kids behind in  Jakarta.

It was the first time he had flown to Pinang for a business trio.

He usually leaves for Palembang or Surabaya when he goes out of town.

On that fateful morning (naas), he was leaving to take care of business (mengurus) and deliver documents to his company’s branch.

She remembered him as a loving, tender man who never hesitated to stand up to anyone who threatened his closest relatives.

He was a Real Madrid enthusiast. (penggemar berat)
 He was also a big fan of soccer. He also exercised regularly.

He is a good swimmer.

She was hopeful that He would survive when she heard that the plane crashed into the sea.

I am sure he could swim his way out and survive the crash.

I am still holding onto his promise that he would only be leaving for 2 days.


M. Luthfi Nurramdhani

He worked at the Pinang branch of state-owned postal service firm Pos Indonesia.

He was planning to go straight to work as soon as he arrived after visiting …

He visited Jakarta for personal business over the weekend.

Besides going back to work, going back to Pinang also meant that he would be reunited with his pregnant wife. 
She works for the national narcotic agency.

She asked her employer to be moved to Pinang so she could be closer to her husband.
.
They had just gotten married in January.


I met her when we were students at the school of communication science.

She was the kindest person she had ever met as ..

He never hesitated to lend a hand to his friends whenever they were in need.

“They had just gotten married in January.”

His parents have started to accept that he might not have survived the crashed.

They believe he is a martyr and

He will go straight to heaven.


Wita, Gilang and Kyara

he turned on his car minutes after he received a call at 6:15 am from his daughter.

He received a call to worm up his engine before leaving for airport,

The airport is about 30 km away from Sungai where he and his family lived.

She asked me to pick her and her family up at the airport after traveling from Jakarta.


However, when he arrived at the airport at …, there were no notification that the plane had landed.

An hour later, the airline officer approached him and said …

The atc had lost contact with the flight.

It was feared to have crashed into the sea.

He was supposed to return to Sungai last weekend after attending an event with …

Last weekend he recalled …

His employer (tempat kerjanya) was holding a company anniversary event in ,..

He asked his family to join him in …where he lived, to attend the event.

She informed that the family of three was unable to get plane tickets back to Pinang.

They decided to go to Jakarta instead and

Stayed at a hotel over the weekend (selama akhir pekan) before catching the first flight to ..

During her visit to Jakarta, they went shopping and had dinner with her cousin the night before she left the next morning.

We ate sushi until we were full and shopped for so many things for her.

He wrote on her Instagram story.

Let’s hang out together again.

We promised last night to travel to Sing this December.


Bhavye Suneja

He is an India native.

He left his hometown for his career as a pilot.

He worked for the lcc LA in Jakarta.

During his stint at the airline, he clocked in more than 6,000 flight hours .

He was known to be familiar with the Boeing 737 plane.

According to his Linkedin profile, he obtained his pilot lisence in 2009 from …

A year later, he joined X for 4 months before joining LA in 2011.

In a statement obtained by me recently, he was thinking about returning to I by applying for a job at a leading Indian airline.

Being an experienced pilot handling the plane with an incident, accident-free record,

We were keen to have him with us because of his good credentials.
An unnamed VP said in the statement.

He wanted a Delhi posting as he was from the city.

However, he should fly with the airline for a year and the co would consider his posting in Delhi.

His wife resides in Jakarta.

He left her job as …to be with her husband.


His father visited the hospital to provide a DNA sample.

The sample would be used to identify his son’s remains.

Rebiyanti and Indra Bayu Adji

I never expected them to be inside the downed LA flight JT 610.

The flight was en route from Jakarta to their hometown in Pinang

I knew they were in Jakarta, but …

I didn’t think both of them would be boarding the flight.

She was in a long-distance marriage with her husband.

He called her while she was in Pal for business.

They decided to meet at the center point in Jakarta.

They decided to spend the weekend together, leaving their 1yo son behind with her parents. 


They have not told anyone that they planned to return to Pinang together.

That was why their entire family was shocked to learn that they were in the crashed plane. 

Although they were not in constant communication with each other, they would catch up via video call.

 “She loved kids,” he recalled. “She would complain every time our nieces and nephews went home because her house would fall silent and she hated that.”