By Sunday, searchers had located the airplane’s flight data recorders and hoped to recover them soon. But it could take months before investigators determine the cause of the crash. Efforts continued Monday to extract bodies and recover the data recorders from the wreckage. The Sriwijaya plane, a Boeing 737-500, was deemed safe to fly before takeoff and the airline had never suffered a crash that resulted in fatalities on board. More than 50 ships and thousands of people are involved in the search and recovery. The Sriwijaya flight, with a 26-year-old Boeing Co. 737-500 jet, took off from Jakarta with 62 people on Jan. 9 and at first flew what appeared to be a routine trajectory, according to a flight track produced by Flightradar24. After reaching about 10,000 feet (3,050 meters), it leveled off, staying between 10,000 and 11,000 feet for about 45 seconds, according to the data. At around that time, an air-traffic controller radioed the plane to say it was off course, said Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi. There was no response. At roughly the same time, the plane turned left by about 40 degrees in the opposite direction from which it had been directed. At that point, the jetliner began an abrupt descent. It dropped by close to 10,000 feet in roughly 14 seconds, which would mean it was descending at about 40,000 feet per minute. That far exceeds any kind of normal flight activity, even an emergency maneuver to get to lower altitudes. Aviation safety analysts cautioned that it’s far too early to say what caused the crash. Numerous factors including some type of malfunction, pilot actions or even a suicide remain possible, they said. While rescue workers say they think they’ve located the jet’s two crash-proof flight recorders, the so-called black boxes have yet to be retrieved from beneath the Java Sea. “I would not take anything off the table yet,” said John Cox, president of Safety Operating Systems and a former airline pilot. “We just don’t have the data.”<br/>
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Hendrik Mulyadi was checking his crab traps when he heard a huge explosion on the water nearby. The sea suddenly rose, lifting the Indonesian fisherman’s boat as smoke filled the air. “I’m lucky it didn’t hit me,” he recalled on Monday, sitting at his home on Lancang Island and still visibly shaken by what he saw. “It was like lightning, very fast. It exploded when it hit the water. I saw debris floating. It was airplane debris.” Hendrik, 30, was one of five crab fishermen who were out working on the water Saturday afternoon when Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 fell from the sky minutes after takeoff with 62 people onboard, 10 of them children and babies. The plane crashed into the Java Sea, about 300 feet from where Hendrik was fishing. Normally a sleepy island with relatively few visitors, Lancang has become a base for the aircraft search and recovery operation led by Basarnas, Indonesia’s national search and rescue agency. The crash site is less than a mile from the island’s mangroves, coconut and banana trees. The Sriwijaya flight, which was bound for the city of Pontianak on the island of Borneo, is the third passenger plane in just over six years to crash into the Java Sea after departing from airports on Java island. By Sunday, searchers had located the airplane’s flight data recorders and hoped to recover them soon. But it could take months before investigators determine the cause of the crash. Efforts continued Monday to extract bodies and recover the data recorders from the wreckage. The Sriwijaya plane, a Boeing 737-500, was deemed safe to fly before takeoff and the airline had never suffered a crash that resulted in fatalities on board. More than 50 ships and thousands of people are involved in the search and recovery.<br/>
A Southwest flight arriving from Phoenix was taken to a remote area of Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on Monday after the crew discovered a threatening note, authorities said. Airport spokesman Jonathan King said Southwest Flight 2104 arrived around 5:15 p.m. before it was taken to the remote location. The 95 passengers and six crewmembers on board the Boeing 737-800 were taken to the terminal by bus. The aircraft has a capacity of 175. The statement didn’t say what the note contained or where on the plane the note was found. A spokeswoman for Southwest said authorities cleared the aircraft and the passengers were allowed to claim their luggage.<br/>
A federal judge has dismissed a proposed class action brought by Southwest Airlines Inc flight attendants accusing Boeing of concealing design and safety defects of the 737 MAX aircraft that led to its grounding, causing them to lose wages and other compensation. US District Judge Robert Gettleman in Chicago found that the flight attendants had failed to link Boeing’s conduct to their own losses, writing Monday that the lawsuit was “long on the details of defendant’s problems with the aircraft” but “short ... on how defendant’s efforts to hide the problems affected the individual plaintiffs.”<br/>
Virgin Atlantic, Richard Branson's airline which has been hammered by the pandemic, is close to finalising a deal to raise just over $230m from two planes, enabling it to repay a loan taken on as part of its rescue deal last year. COVID-19 restrictions stopped significant levels of travel on Virgin's main UK to US routes during 2020, bringing the airline to its knees. To survive the crisis it shed almost half of its 10,000 workforce and underwent a "solvent recapitalisation" last September. The latest phase of that plan is the sale and leaseback of two planes with Griffin Global Asset Management which a source close to the company said was on schedule to complete this week, and would raise just over $230m for the airline. "On closing, this financing opportunity regarding two of our 787s will allow us to pay down debt and further improve our cash position going into 2021," a Virgin Atlantic spokesman said.<br/>
Porter Airlines has once more delayed its plans to restart flights, setting March 29 as a new tentative date, just over a year since it first suspended operations. The regional airline said in November that it expected to restart flights on Feb. 11, but revised those plans in light of a continued surge in COVID-19 cases and new public health measures. Porter's announcement comes after Ottawa implemented a new requirement that international travellers provide evidence of a negative COVID-19 test prior to arrival. Porter suspended operations on March 21, 2020, due to the pandemic. Michael Deluce, Porter's president and CEO, said that the introduction of the vaccine has given the airline more confidence about setting a date in the near-term than at any point since the pandemic began.<br/>
Emirates plans to expand its services to the US from Dubai as the airline ramps up its operations. The carrier will resume non-stop services to Seattle from Feb. 1, and to Dallas and San Francisco from March 2, according to a statement. It also plans to boost flights to New York, Los Angeles and Sao Paulo from next month. Dubai locked down the city for about a month last year and Emirates grounded passenger flights to halt the spread of the coronavirus. Since then flights have since resumed operations, and Emirates said Monday it currently serves 114 destinations on six continents.<br/>
A new Indian airline has launched in a country badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic and at a time of massive challenges for the aviation sector. Flybig, the latest entrant into India's highly competitive aviation sector, started commercial operations on Jan 3 with an inaugural flight connecting Indore in Madhya Pradesh state to Ahmedabad in Gujarat. The airline, which is operating three flights a week on this route, has started with two planes and plans to scale up to 20 aircraft with 40 to 50 routes in three years' time, said its chief executive, Captain Srinivas Rao. He said the start-up, which operates the turboprop ATR-72, would focus on regional connectivity but admitted that times were challenging. The airline has 20 per cent to 24% occupancy. "In fact, the plan was to launch at the end of March or April (last year) and everything was put on hold," said Capt Rao, adding that the airline kept its launch low key. "I think in Covid-19 times, where do you start beating the drum? What we are looking to do is connect people and places which are underserved. We believe we have our own space where we can work. There is a lot of growth in this tier 2 space, which hasn't been tapped." Tier 2 cities have populations between 50,000 and 100,000. Still, the new airline is taking off at a time when aviation, not just in India, is facing its worst challenge as a result of the pandemic greatly shrinking air travel.<br/>
AirAsia Group is not looking to switch aircraft supplier despite cancelling orders from Airbus last month, its CEO Tony Fernandes said. Fernandes initially declined to comment when asked on a panel at the Reuters Next conference if the airline he founded would switch to Boeing, but then said that the airline and Airbus “love each other”. “We love each other. Between us and Airbus, we’ve lots of ups and downs like any relationship but we’re joined at the hip,” he said. Airbus said last week it had cancelled a deal with AirAsia Group’s long-haul affiliate AirAsia X, including for 10 A350 wide-body jets worth $3.2 billion at list prices. It still has more than 108 other orders from the financially troubled carrier. AirAsia Group, together with AirAsia X, is one of Airbus’ largest customers and also purchases exclusively from them.<br/>