LION Mentari Airlines, or Lion Air, was established in October 1999. It immediately became Indonesia's largest private airline. The company, owned by Rusdi Kirana and his brother, twice broke the world record for plane purchases. In 2011, Lion Air inked a deal to purchase 230 Boeing planes for US$21.3 billion. And then, in 2013, they signed a US$24 billion contract for 234 Airbuses.

Equally historic is the airline's abysmal accident record. Lion A