Lion Air Plane Was Intact With Running Engine Before Crash, Investigators Claim

The head of Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee, Soerjanto Tjahjono, said Monday the Lion Air Flight 610 was intact with its engines running when it crashed at high speed into the Java Sea.

The debris and the loss of the plane’s engine blades led investigators to determine that Flight 610 did not explode in the air, Tjahjono said. He added the plane was in "good shape" before it crashed Oct. 29, 13 minutes after takeoff. All 189 people on board the flight were determined dead.

Soerjanto was speaking with the victim's families Monday when he made the statement. He said, on the day of the crash, there was a technical problem with the new Boeing 737 MAX 8; however, Tjahjono did not provide further clarifications or details regarding the problem.

The confirmation of the condition of the flight comes as divers continue their search for the aircraft's missing black box, or cockpit voice recorder (CVR), which would have helped investigators correctly determine the final moments of the plane before it crashed.

Muhammad Syaugi, the head of Indonesia's Search and Rescue Agency, Basarnas, said Sunday diving teams could no longer detect a signal from the CVR after hearing a “ping” Saturday.

"Yesterday there was a fairly strong signal. Today (a search) dive was conducted - there was a signal but it was weak, quite possibly because of the mud,” investigator Nurcahyo Utomo said.

"We checked that spot, located around 50 meters from the location of finding the first black box. But we can't find the CVR yet," Syaugi said.

The plane’s other black box, which was the flight data recorder, was located Thursday, a report in CNN said. According to investigators Flight 610 performed 19 flights as per the data.

Reports said six black box experts from four different countries were analyzing the device to try and piece together the last moments of the new Boeing 737.

"Now we are choosing which parameters we need. From here we will analyze what happened to that flight," Utomo said.

The search operations were extended and will continue through Wednesday, Syaugi said, adding the focus would be to recover any additional remains of victims and locate the CVR.

Previously, authorities confirmed the pilots experienced similar technical issues when they were flying the plane on a different route a day before the crash.

The plane, which had only 800 flying hours on the clock then, experienced a significant drop in altitude on a flight from Bali to Jakarta, passenger Robbi Gaharu said.

"After 10 minutes in the air, the plane dropped as if it was losing power. People panicked. It dropped about 400 feet," Gaharu said. He added the drop felt like falling into "a really, really deep hole.”

The information was confirmed by Lion Air, and Indonesian authorities said the pilot on the plane reported a problem with one of the instruments on the aircraft.

As of Sunday, a total of 105 body bags, few containing intact remains, was recovered, the Straits Times reported. The bags were handed to police for forensic identification. Reports said only 14 victims were identified at the moment.

"I'm sure the total will increase," Syaugi said.