The plane, which reportedly carried two pilots, six crew members and 181 passengers, including two children and one infant, reportedly crashed 7 miles north off the coast of Tanjung Bungin in Karawang, West Java.

“We are certain that the plane crashed into the sea and is submerged at a depth of 30 to 35 meters,” National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) head M. Syaugi told a press conference on Monday.

“We have located the debris about 2 nautical miles [3.7 kilometers] south of where contact with the plane was lost,” he said.

Syaugi said that 130 Basarnas personnel had been deployed from Jakarta and West Java’s Bandung and Cirebon, as well as other areas. Thirty Basarnas Special Group (BSG) personnel had also been deployed to the debris site.

Bandung SAR spokesperson Joshua Banjarnahor said that a team comprising SAR members and divers from Bandung and Cirebon had been deployed on Rescue Boat 2016.

“Ninety personnel have been prepared to assist in the rescue efforts,” Joshua said. “Rescue Boat 2016 has set sail.”

National Transportation Safety Commission (KNKT) head Soerjanto Tjahjono said that the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft that flew under flight number JT610  commenced operations under Lion Air in August and had a total 800 flight hours.

Soerjanto said the Basarnas team was looking for the black box to determine the cause of the crash.

The Basarnas also sent an underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to search for passengers and crew.

The Basarnas also sent an underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to search for passengers and crew. (Courtesy of Basarnas/-)

Recent photographs from Basarnas show that the team had recovered parts of the plane and several ID cards, presumably belonging to the plane’s passengers.

Government officials are reportedly among the passengers aboard the missing aircraft.

Finance Ministry spokesperson Nufransa Wira Sakti confirmed that 20 ministry officials, including staffers of the State Assets and Auction Services (KPKNL) and the State Treasury Services Office (KPPN), were among the 178 adult passengers on the aircraft.

“We are still confirming data on the names against the flight manifest,” Nufransa said on Monday.

We all love to wear neat, wrinkle-free clothes, and that is why Mak Cik Cleaning Services founder Wan Nazwani Wan Johan, who folds or irons clothes at people’s homes, said the business was an opportunity to leverage on her skills in folding clothes with ease.

She quit her job as a graphic artist at a media firm, a job she did for a decade.

“I sat down and weighed all of my options and skills. I knew I could iron well and that other people disliked doing this task.

“It was only when they called me repeatedly that I knew it would work. “The relief I saw on my customers’ faces was priceless,” she said.

Wan Nazwani (right) and her husband Mohd Ridzuan with the clothes that they had folded.

Wan Nazwani added that she found people were willing to spend money to have their trousers, shirts, dresses, and baju kurung steam-ironed and folded or put on hangers.

Most of her clients are doctors, teachers, college students and people in the media line who who value time saved from doing these chores. She said people cherished their precious free time on weekends.

Wan Nazwani started the business in 2016 and charges RM5 per kilogramme for folding clothes. “Most of the time there is a huge pile of washed clothes at their clients’ homes.

“Recently, it took us two days to finish ironing and folding newly laundered clothes of one family in Subang Jaya who had just returned from a holiday.

“It was a challenging task as I had to sort out the clothes, fold them and place them into different baskets,” she said, adding that they received more customers as word went around that we folded clothes well.

Wan Nazwani said pressing and folding clothes with a professional and ethical approach allowed her to earn a good income that also motivated her to convince her husband, Mohd Ridzuan Baharudin to join the business. Both of them are in their 30s.

Mohd Ridzuan, an extreme sports organiser, gave up his business to help his wife. “We invested in a premium steam iron and we drive to people’s homes to fold or iron their clothes.

“It is an interesting job because we discovered that women dislike folding clothes. Many need the service during their confinement period,” he said.

Mohd Ridzuan added that the market for this service was big. “We work three weeks a month and are not weighed down by the conventional 9am to 5pm salaried job,” he said urging young Malaysians to think out of the box to earn a living.

For details, call Wan Nazwani at 019-3501886 or makcik.cleaning.services on Facebook.

According to his Linkedin account, Captain Bhavye Suneja had worked in the airline for seven years and eight months.

Before Lion Air, Bhavye was a Boeing 737 trainee pilot in Emirates for four months.

The graduate of Ahlcon Public School in New Delhi had studied piloting at the Bel Air pilot training and flight school.

The flight, which was reported to have at least 189 people on board, lost contact 13 minutes after takeoff, and is believed to have sunk after crashing into the sea off Indonesia’s island of Java.

The jet vanished from radar just 13 minutes after taking off from the Indonesian capital, plunging into the ocean.

Search and Rescue Agency spokesman Yusuf Latif said authorities were still searching for the remains of the plane, which lost contact with air traffic control around 6.30 am (2330 GMT), en route to Pangkal Pinang on the island of Bangka.

“The plane crashed into water about 30 to 40 metres deep,” he told AFP.

Sindu Rahayu, directorate general of Civil Aviation at the transport ministry, said the aircraft was carrying 178 adult passengers, one child and two babies, with two pilots and five flight attendants.

“The plane had requested to return to base before finally disappearing from the radar,” he added in a statement.

The Flightradar website tracked the plane — which it said was a Boeing 737 — and showed it looping south on take-off and then heading north before the flight path ended abruptly over the Java Sea, not far from the coast.

Poor safety record

Indonesia relies heavily on air transport to connect its thousands of islands but has a poor aviation safety record and has suffered several fatal crashes in recent years.

A 12-year-old boy was the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed eight people in mountainous eastern Indonesia in August.

In August 2015, a commercial passenger aircraft operated by Indonesian carrier Trigana crashed in Papua due to bad weather, killing all 54 people on board.

In 2014, an AirAsia plane crashed with the loss of 162 lives.

Indonesian investigators’ final report showed a chronically faulty component in a rudder control system, poor maintenance and the pilots’ inadequate response were major factors in what was supposed to be a routine flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

Lion Air, a low-cost airline, has been involved in a number of incidents.

Last year one of its Boeing jets collided with a Wings Air plane as it landed at Kualanamu airport on the island of Sumatra, although no one was injured.

In May 2016, two Lion Air planes collided at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta airport, while a month earlier a plane operated by Batik Air — part of the Lion Group — clipped a TransNusa plane.

In 2013 a Lion Air jet with a rookie pilot at the controls undershot the runway and crashed into the sea in Bali, splitting the plane in two. Several people were injured in the crash, although no one was killed.

Indonesia’s air travel industry is booming, with the number of domestic passengers growing significantly over the past decade, but it has acquired a reputation for poor regulation.

Last year the Indonesian air traffic controllers association revealed that the rate of take-off and landings in Jakarta allowed by state-run air navigation company AirNav was more than the airport could handle, increasing the chance of accidents.

The country’s carriers have in the past faced years-long bans from entering European Union and US airspace over their safety records.

The recent scandal that tainted the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA) would be a test case for the new Anti-Hazing Act of 2018, Senator Panfilo Lacson said Sunday.

The scandal which reportedly involved cadets forcing freshmen to perform oral sex as a form of punishment, Lacson said, is considered hazing under Republic Act 11053, or the new Anti-Hazing Act of 2018.

“In this case, the cadets involved may have the distinction of being the first to be convicted under the new law,” he said in a statement.

The senator also stressed that hazing is now considered a capital offense, with those found guilty facing life imprisonment without bail.

Lacson sponsored the new law in the Senate after his Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs probed the fatal hazing of law student Horacio Castillo III.

The senator explained that under the law, the definition of hazing has been expanded to include “physical or psychological suffering, harm or injury inflicted on a recruit, member, neophyte, or applicant” as a prerequisite for admission or for continued membership in an organization.

Banned under the law are “all forms of hazing” not only in fraternities, sororities or organizations in schools, but also those in communities and even businesses and uniformed service learning institutions, he added.

The liabilities include:

• Penalty of reclusion temporal and P1 million on the participating officer and members of the fraternity who were involved in the hazing.
• Reclusion perpetua and P2 million on members who actually participated in hazing when under the influence of alcohol or drugs; and on non-resident or alumni who participate in hazing.
• Reclusion perpetua and P3 million on those who participated in hazing that resulted in death, rape, sodomy, or mutilation
• P1 million on the school if it approved an initiation of a fraternity, sorority or organization where hazing occurred.
• Prision correccional (six months to six years) on anyone who intimidates or threatens another for recruitment. This includes “persistent and repeated” proposals or invitations to those who refused to join at least twice
• P1 million for former officers or alumni who try to hide or obstruct investigation.

“I started sweating and shivering,” said the 43-year-old ─ just the latest victim of a money laundering scheme that Prime Minister Imran Khan has vowed to crush.

When he got a call from the Federal Investigation Agency, Rasheed’s first inclination was to go into hiding, but friends and family members finally convinced him to cooperate with officials.

His case mirrors dozens of similar stories in recent weeks that have filled newspapers in Pakistan and riled a populace long accustomed to extravagant tales of corruption and theft.

The incidents follow a similar arc ─ bank accounts in poor residents’ names are flooded with cash, then suddenly emptied in a laundering scheme that has likely seen hundreds of millions of dollars moved out of the country.

Rasheed’s name was eventually cleared, but his anxiety remained.

Auto-rickshaw driver Mohammad Rasheed plays with his daughter Nabeeha Rasheed in their home in Korangi. ─ AFP

“I stopped driving my rented rickshaw on the roads because of the fear that some other investigating agencies might pick me up,” he said. “My wife fell sick because of the tension.”

Only weeks before the fiasco he had finally been able to buy a Rs300 bike with worn tyres for his daughter ─ the fruit of a year’s careful saving.

‘Stolen money’

The revelation of the laundering frenzy comes as the newly elected PM Khan has vowed to squash rampant corruption and recover billions siphoned from the country as his government scrambles to shore up Pakistan’s deteriorating finances.

“This is your stolen money,” said the former cricketer during a televised address to the nation Wednesday.

“It was stolen on public contracts… and transferred into these accounts, then laundered abroad. I will spare no corrupt man in this country,” he promised.

But for victims like Mohammad Qadir the damage has already been done.

“I have never even seen a bank from the inside,” said the 52-year-old falooda vendor.Transactions were nevertheless made in his name for Rs2.25bn.

Since news of the incident spread Qadir says he is regularly mocked by his neighbours and also fears being kidnapped by criminal elements who believe he has billions of rupees to spare for hefty ransoms.

Falooda vendor Mohammad Qadir (L) prepares falooda for customers at his cart in Orangi Town. ─ AFP

“He is a penniless billionaire,” one of Qadir’s acquaintances laughed while driving past his falooda cart in Orangi town.

“People make fun of me, but I ended up with nothing at all from this situation,” said Qadir. “It is such a tragedy.”

Public health department official Sarwat Zehra speaks during an interview with AFP at her home in Zaman Town in the eastern district of Karachi. ─ AFP

Sarwat Zehra, a 56-year-old official, says she has suffered from high-blood pressure after being handed a bill for Rs13m in back taxes.

“I was told that a company had illegally passed Rs14 or 15bn through my account,” she said.

The poor have long been used as fronts for the elite to dodge taxes and hide assets.

But the scale of the bank account scheme is unprecedented, with authorities pointing the finger at some of Karachi’s wealthiest power brokers including figures with links to former president Asif Zardari.

‘Blacklist’

In September, the Supreme Court established a commission to investigate the scourge, finding that at least $400m had passed through “thousands of false accounts”, using the names of impoverished people.

Some 600 companies and individuals “are associated with the scandal”, the commission concluded.

It is all the more embarrassing for Khan as his administration scrambles to secure billions of dollars in foreign financial assistance, while also entering talks with the International Monetary Fund for a potential bailout amid a widening balance of payment crisis.

The brazen laundering schemes come as Pakistan was again placed on a watchlist this year by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) ─ an anti money-laundering monitor based in Paris ─ for failing to do enough to combat terror financing.

Vichai, who died after his helicopter crashed outside Leicester’s stadium on Saturday, had only hours earlier been celebrating the success of two of the around 60 horses he owns in training, despite only getting involved in the sport last year under the team name King Power Racing.

Vichai invested around £30 million ($38 million, $34 million) in racing, vying to become a force in the ‘Sport of Kings’. One of the winning horses’ names on Saturday bears a now grimly ironic name — Happy Power.

Happy Power’s trainer Andrew Balding will feel the impact more than most. At the start of the season, he had 33 horses sent by Vichai — almost a fifth of his stable.

For a trainer like Balding, Vichai’s investment was a potential game changer as he battled against the stables backed by billionaire Arab owners.

“Happily, we’ve had huge hope in the investment Vichai is making,” Balding told The Daily Telegraph last year.

“The big operations like Juddmonte and Sheikh Hamdan (Al Maktoum) haven’t had horses here, so it will be fantastic to get some really good individuals pedigree-wise, which will be a big bonus to the yard.”

– ‘He made the decisions’ –

Mirroring his stewardship at Leicester City, against-the-odds winners of the Premier League in 2016, Vichai became a meticulous investor in horses.

Balding said Vichai had put “a lot of thought” into the purchases he made at last year’s sales.

“He was heavily involved in every purchase, at the end of a phone,” he said.

“We tried to point him in the right direction but ultimately he made the decisions.”

Even in racing, Vichai could never leave his beloved Leicester City — known as the Foxes — far from his thoughts.

The names of his horses reflected this such — one is named Fox Vardy, after England striker Jamie Vardy whose goals propelled the club to the league title.

Another is called Fox Kasper — in honour of the team’s goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel.

Ever the showman, Vichai’s announcement of his intention to become a major player in racing was made at the auction in Kensington Gardens on the eve of perhaps the most famous racing festival in the world, Royal Ascot.

Through his bloodstock agent Alastair Donald, he spent over £2 million at the sale last year on horses due to run at the festival and did the same again this year.

Despite some successes, his investments have yet to yield the desired results, particularly at Ascot.

Even his most expensive purchase — the beautifully-bred King Power, who cost £2.5 million as a yearling last year, failed to sparkle on her debut on Saturday, finishing out of the places.

But King Power, Happy Power and maybe Fox Vardy could go on next year to become champions. The footballer Vardy after all took years to fulfil his potential.

Among the sea of tributes to Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha — the funder behind the club’s epic 2016 Premier League victory — was also an image of Ganesh, a Hindu god often seen at Thai Buddhist temples.

As emergency vehicles passed back and forth from the scene of the crash, a steady stream of people came to express their gratitude: a man on crutches, a father consoling his teenage son, a woman carrying a bouquet of blue and white flowers — the colours of the football club.

“He’s put Leicester on the map. He’s made us big, we’re not just a little club anymore,” said one supporter, 55-year-old Cathy Dann, speaking before Srivaddhanaprabha’s death was confirmed.

John Welford, 68, said: “What a fantastic man! I’ve been a supporter 60 years and personally I think he’s the best ever owner we’ve ever had”.

Fans streamed to the stadium to express their gratitude long before official confirmation that the 60-year-old businessman, who frequently flies to and from Leicester’s home games by helicopter, was aboard the aircraft.

Four other people on the helicopter, including two members of Vichai’s staff, were also killed in the crash.

Residents remembered a determined and charismatic figure who was the driving force behind a footballing feat when the club rose through the ranks to win the top spot two years ago.

Many also remembered the owner’s generosity to fans — free breakfasts at away matches and free beers on his birthday — as well as to the city, including a donation to the local hospital.

“They’re sort of around like supporters, they’re like us. They believe in what the club is and they’ve bought into that,” said Mahendra Mistri, 59.

– ‘He made us champions’ –

Kanti Patel, one of the first supporters to come to pay tribute in the early hours of Sunday, told AFP: “It means a lot to me, he did a lot for the club.

“I can’t get over it. Since him being with the club the club has done well, and I don’t know what’s going to happen now.”

Another fan, Tom Lievers, arrived with a “Champions” scarf to pay tribute to Vichai.

“Well you know where we were when he bought the club — we were absolutely nowhere. So I brought down my ‘Champions’ scarf because he made us champions.”

Andrew Aldwinckle said: “He was more like he was a supporter, a proper supporter, rather than a money man. He was one of the crowd. As far as we’re concerned, that’s it.”

Steve Walton, who wore the club’s blue hat, said: “I think there’s a lot of Leicester fans around the world — not just in Leicester, but around the world — who I think will be devastated and he meant a lot to the fans.”

Vichai also brought Thailand greater recognition in the international sporting world, developing the Southeast Asian country’s football scene.

At a football game in central Bangkok, Leicester City fan Apichart Jitratkavee said he was an important person who “raised the bar of Thai football further.

“There were projects by Leicester City to select Thai teenagers to train in the club’s academy. They will have a chance to serve the nation in the future.”

Another fan, Nathavut Sirimontaporn, said Vichai had brought “benefits” to Thai football. “I think having him as an owner of the Leicester City made people know Thailand more,” he said.

A stream of fans already fearing the worst had laid out flowers, football scarves and Buddhist prayers outside the grounds after Saturday’s accident in tribute to Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha — the man they credit for an against-all-odds Premiership victory in 2016.

“The world has lost a great man,” the club said in a statement.

“Leicester City was a family under his leadership. It is as a family that we will grieve his passing and maintain the pursuit of a vision for the club that is now his legacy,” it said.

A book of condolence will be opened at the stadium from Tuesday and the team postponed its fixture against Southampton.

“Everyone at the Club has been truly touched by the remarkable response of the football family, whose thoughtful messages of support and solidarity have been deeply appreciated at this difficult time,” the statement said.

Police named the four other victims as Nursara Suknamai and Kaveporn Punpare, two members of Vichai’s staff, pilot Eric Swaffer and passenger Izabela Roza Lechowicz.

Vichai, 60, the owner of Thailand’s King Power duty free empire, was a regular at matches who used to fly to and from home games.

He and the four other victims, who have not been named, boarded the blue craft, which took off from the middle of the pitch once the stadium had emptied after Saturday’s 1-1 draw with West Ham.

Eyewitnesses said the helicopter appeared to develop a mechanical problem in its rear propeller shortly after takeoff.

Images showed orange balls of flame engulfing the wreckage in the car park at King Power Stadium — the scene of unbridled jubilation after Leicester’s Premier League victory two years ago.

Prayers and tributes poured in from across Britain from the footballing world and beyond for the jovial man many credit with bringing glory to the central English city with the miracle-making club.

“He’s put Leicester on the map,” supporter Cathy Dann, 55, told AFP.

“He’s made us big,” she said, as aviation experts picked through small pieces of wreckage scattered on the stadium’s edge.

Among the tributes was an image of Ganesh — a Hindu god also seen in Thai Buddhist temples.

A minute’s silence was observed before the whistle of Sunday’s Premier League matches.

“It is a family business and they have instilled this sense of family not just throughout the club but into the city as well,” Andrew Hulley, the team’s chaplain for the past seven years, told AFP.

– Prayers and disbelief –

England legend Gary Lineker, a former Leicester player who was hosting the BBC’s Match of the Day when the accident happened, tweeted: “That was the most difficult @BBCMOTD I’ve ever hosted… A terrible tragedy. Heartbreaking.”

And ordinary fans in central Bangkok said Vichai helped develop Thailand’s football as well, bringing the Southeast Asian country greater recognition in the sports world.

“He is an important person who has raised the bar of Thai football further,” Apichart Jitratkavee, a Leicester fan in the Thai capital, told AFP.

Vichai bought Leicester City in 2010 and moved to chairman the following February, pouring millions into the team and becoming a beloved figure in the club and the city — a feat not always achieved by the Premier League’s foreign owners.

– 5,000-1 odds –

It was under Vichai’s ownership that Leicester crafted one of the biggest fairytales in English football history by winning the 2015/16 Premier League, having started the season as 5,000-1 outsiders for the title.

Vichai’s investments in the club helped return them to England’s Premier League from the second-tier Championship in 2014.

They initially seemed outclassed by richer and more established rival from London, Liverpool and Manchester, languishing at the very bottom of the table for most of the 2014/15 season.

The Foxes, as the team are nicknamed, then engineered what fans now fondly refer to as the “Great Escape”, winning seven of their last nine matches.

They ended up finishing 14th, securing another season in Europe’s richest league in 2015/16.

But not even their most devout fans could have imagined what happened next.

Vardy, signed from non-league Fleetwood Town, scored in 11 consecutive matches, propelling the men in blue to a title without parallel in Premier League history.

The success also qualified them for the first time for the lucrative Champions League, the pinnacle of European football played by the continent’s most successful sides, including Barcelona and Real Madrid.

There, Leicester City defied the odds yet again, winning their group before eventually losing their quarter-final 2-1 over two legs to Atletico Madrid.