It looks like budget Indonesian airline Lion Air has a lot of explaining to do. Yesterday, Transport Minister Budi Karya Sumadi issued a summon to representatives of the company to meet with him today regarding several recent troubling incidents.
In a statement released Sunday evening, Budi said Lion Air may have committed several huge errors over the past few days, such as allegedly leaving behind transit passengers in Johor Baru, Malaysia on March 29.
“I also heard that some passengers were left behind [in Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta Airport] even though they checked in on time. And today, a Lion Air plane spilled its fuel on the tarmac of Juanda Airport in Surabaya,” Budi said yesterday, as quoted by Okezone.
Images of a Lion Air plane leaking what appears to be fuel has gone viral on social media. Lion Air President Director Edward Sirait confirmed the fuel leak, saying that, “only a few liters were spilled.”
A Lion Air 737 taking a leak in Surabaya yesterday, literally @adharves @JewelTopsfield pic.twitter.com/PQN1D49mCA
— IslandFlyer (@theislandflyer) April 2, 2017
“I don’t want these kinds of things to keep happening,” Budi said, though he did not specify if Lion Air might receive any sanctions from the government over these incidents.
On top of the incidents that Budi mentioned, there are also reports that several Lion Air flights from Soekarno-Hatta have been delayed from yesterday afternoon until this morning, leaving hundreds stranded in the airport.
