Indonesia is still trying to find the cockpit voice recorder from a Lion Air jet that crashed into the sea near Jakarta last month, even though its “ping” signal is no longer being detected, a transport safety panel said on Thursday. The nearly new Boeing 737 MAX passenger plane crashed into the sea on Oct. 29, just minutes after taking off from Jakarta en route to an island off Sumatra, killing all 189 on board. Authorities have downloaded data from one of the black boxes found days after the crash, the flight data recorder, but are still looking for the cockpit voice recorder. “We’re still putting in all our efforts to find the CVR (cockpit voice recorder),” Soerjanto Tjahjono, the chief of Indonesia’s National Transport Safety Committee (KNKT), told parliament on Thursday. The search team was targeting an area with a radius of 300 metres using sonar and dredging mud from the sea floor, even though a signal initially heard from the recorder was now not being detected, he said. Efforts to find the second black box have been hampered by strong currents and complicated by the presence of energy pipelines in the area. Boeing has already provided two updates for operators around the world that re-emphasize existing procedures to deal with situations relating to the system. KNKT is due to announce next Wednesday the preliminary results of its investigation into the crash.<br/>
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Passengers of an IndiGo flight from Hyderabad to Port Blair experienced anxious moments Tuesday as the A320 neo aircraft tilted mid-air, according to a senior regulatory official. Aviation regulator DGCA has started a probe into the incident, which is the latest in a series of issues involving IndiGo's fleet of A320 neo planes powered with Pratt & Whitney engines. After it tilted to one side mid-air, the pilot managed to balance the aircraft, a senior DGCA official said. An IndiGo spokesperson said the pilot observed a minor engine sensor issue that did not warrant any automated caution and that the plane made a normal landing at Port Blair. The A320 neo aircraft suffered "yawing" and the regulator might also ask for the flight's DFDR to assess the angle of tilt and fix responsibility for for the incident, the official said. <br/>
Virgin Atlantic Airways is in talks to acquire regional airline Flybe Group, Sky News reported Thursday, a week after Flybe said it was in talks to sell itself. A tie-up with Flybe would provide opportunities to feed passenger traffic into Virgin Atlantic's long-haul network and access valuable take-off and landing slots at London Heathrow Airport, Sky News reported, citing unnamed sources. <br/>
A Peruvian Airlines Boeing 737 suffered a collapsed landing gear when it arrived at an airport in Bolivia, forcing closure of the runway for 10 hours. Officials say none of the 122 passengers or five crewmembers was hurt. Officials say that they were unable to move the plane, prompting a 10-hour closure that delayed several other flights into and out of the El Alto airport near the Bolivian capital on Thursday The plane was arriving on a flight from Cuzco, Peru. The airline said that the cause of the incident is under investigation.<br/>
Indonesia AirAsia X will cease scheduled operations in January 2019 and operate as a non-scheduled commercial airline thereafter. The carrier’s only scheduled operation - a seven-times weekly service between Denpasar and Tokyo Narita using an A330 - will be suspended in January, the AirAsia X Group disclosed in its Q3 results. “With the challenging operational environment in Indonesia, primarily due to the series of natural disasters that occurred in proximity to Bali, the company is underway to evaluate the available options for our Indonesian associate to ensure sustainability of the company with the last schedule flight from Bali to Narita will end in January 2019,” said AirAsia X group CEO Nadda Buranasiri. “Moving forward, AirAsia X Indonesia will operate on a non-scheduled commercial airline basis.”<br/>
Indonesia’s Lion Air plans to meet Boeing on Nov. 30 to review the airline’s orders for Boeing 737 MAX series planes in the period until 2035, Lion Air’s director of safety and security Daniel Putut said on Thursday. Lion Air, one of Boeing’s largest customers globally, announced in April a firm order to buy 50 Boeing 737 MAX 10 narrowbody jets with a list price of $6.24b. Its overall pipeline of orders is for 261 MAX series planes in the period until 2035, Putut said. Indonesia’s transport and safety committee is due to announce next week the preliminary results of an investigation into the crash of a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX jet that slammed into the sea on Oct. 29 just minutes after taking off, killing all 189 on board.<br/>
Hainan Airlines and Sichuan Airlines have applied to launch new international services in January 2019. Hainan Airlines is seeking rights to operate daily services from Guangzhou to Helsinki and Tehran, to start on 7 January. Mahan Airlines already operates on that route. Sichuan Airlines meanwhile wants to operate four-times weekly between Chengdu and Istanbul from 5 January. If approved, it will be the only operator on that route. The Civil Aviation Administration of China is seeking comments to the applications by 27 November.<br/>
Malaysian carrier Firefly will suspend all flights to Singapore from 1 December, over issues related to its move from the city state's Changi airport to Seletar airport. In a notice on its website, Firefly said it has had to suspend the flights "until the relevant authorities have cleared remaining matters in relation to the Singapore authority's plans to move turboprop operations from Changi to Seletar". "Firefly has not been provided any definitive timeline by the authorities for the delay. Upon final approval from the authorities, Firefly will then resume its flights into Singapore". The airline's announcement comes just days after Changi Airport Group (CAG) announced the commencement of operations at Seletar airport, which is dedicated to turboprop and business aviation. It had also said that all scheduled turboprop flights into Singapore will move from Changi to Seletar from 1 December.<br/>
Debt-laden carrier Jet Airways's independent director Ranjan Mathai resigned here late Thursday, citing rising pressure from other commitments. The departure comes as the airline struggles to keep itself afloat, with rising debt levels and higher oil prices weighing on profits. Indian conglomerate Tata Sons Ltd said last week it is in preliminary talks with Jet, but has not made a proposal to buy a stake. “I am no longer able to devote the time required to meet my obligations, as an independent director on the Board of Jet Airways and have accordingly decided to resign from the Board,” Mathai said in a statement issued by the airline. <br/>