NATION/WORLD
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
Wednesday, October 31,2018 5A
TATAN SYUFLANA I Associated Press
Rescuers open bags containing the parts of the crashed
Lion Air plane during a rescue operation in the waters of
Tanjung Karawang, Indonesia, Tuesday, Oct. 30.
Indonesian jet
had history of
recent problems
Boston gangster Whitey Bulger
found dead in Virginia prison
FBI FILE PHOTOS I Associated Press
These 1980s FBI handout file photos show Massachusetts
mobster James “Whitey” Bulger. Officials with the Federal
Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, in a
West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston
to spend the rest of his life in prison.
BY NINIEK KARMINI AND
STEPHEN WRIGHT
Associated Press
JAKARTA, Indonesia —
Relatives numbed by grief
provided samples for DNA
tests to help identify victims
of the Lion Air plane crash
that killed 189 people in Indo
nesia, as accounts emerged
Tuesday of problems on the
jet’s previous flight including
rapid descents that terrified
passengers.
Hundreds of rescue per
sonnel searched seas where
the plane crashed, send
ing more than three dozen
body bags to identification
experts, while the airline
flew dozens of grieving rela
tives to the country’s capital,
Jakarta.
The 2-month-old Boeing
737 MAX 8 jet plunged into
the Java Sea early Mon
day, just 13 minutes after
taking off from Jakarta for
an island off Sumatra. Its
pilot requested clearance to
return to the airport 2-3 min
utes after takeoff, indicating
a problem, though the cause
is still uncertain.
Aircraft debris and per
sonal belongings including
ID cards, clothing and bags
found scattered in the sea
were spread out on tarps at
a port in north Jakarta and
sorted into evidence bags.
The chief of the police’s
medical unit, Arthur Tampi,
said it has received dozens
of body parts for identifica
tion and is awaiting results of
DNA tests, expected to take
4-8 days.
The disaster has reig
nited concerns about safety
in Indonesia’s fast-growing
aviation industry, which
was recently removed from
European Union and U.S.
blacklists.
Two passengers on the
plane’s previous flight from
Bali to Jakarta on Sunday
described issues that caused
annoyance and alarm.
Alon Soetanto told TVOne
the plane dropped suddenly
several times in the first few
minutes of its flight.
“About three to eight
minutes after it took off, I
felt like the plane was los
ing power and unable to
rise. That happened several
times during the flight,” he
said. “We felt like in a roller
coaster. Some passengers
began to panic and vomit.”
His account is consistent
with data from flight-track
ing sites that show erratic
speed, altitude and direction
in the minutes after the jet
took off. A similar pattern
is also seen in data pinged
from Monday’s fatal flight.
Safety experts cautioned,
however, that the data must
be checked for accuracy
against the plane’s “black
boxes,” which officials are
confident will be recovered.
Lion Air president
Edward Sirait said there
were reports of technical
problems with the flight
from Bali but they had been
resolved in accordance with
the plane manufacturer’s
procedures. The airline
didn’t respond to requests to
verify a document purport
ing to be a Lion Air mainte
nance report, dated Sunday,
that described inaccurate
airspeed and altitude read
ings after takeoff.
In a detailed post online,
Indonesian TV presenter
Conchita Caroline, who
was on Sunday’s flight,
said boarding was delayed
by more than an hour and
when the plane was being
towed, a technical problem
forced it to return to its park
ing space.
She said passengers sat
in the cabin without air
conditioning for at least
30 minutes listening to an
“unusual” engine roar, while
some children vomited from
the overbearing heat, until
staff faced with rising anger
let them disembark.
After the passengers
waited on the tarmac for
about 30 minutes, they were
told to board again while an
engine was checked.
Caroline said she queried
a staff member and received
a defensive response.
“He just showed me the
flight permit that he had
signed and he said the prob
lem had been settled,” she
said. “He treated me like a
passenger full of disturbing
dramas even though what
I was asking represented
friends and confused tour
ists who didn’t understand
Indonesian.”
On Tuesday, distraught
family members struggled
to comprehend the sudden
loss of loved ones in the
crash of a new plane with
experienced pilots in fine
weather.
BY DENISE LAVOIE
AND ALANNA
DURKIN RICHER
Associated Press
BOSTON — James
“Whitey” Bulger, the mur
derous Boston gangster
who benefited from a cor
rupt relationship with the
FBI before spending 16
years as one of America’s
most wanted men, was
slain in federal prison. He
was 89.
Bulger was found
unresponsive Tuesday
morning at the U.S. peni
tentiary in West Virginia
where he’d just been
transferred, and a medi
cal examiner declared
him dead shortly after
ward, according to the
Federal Bureau of Pris
ons. Authorities did not
immediately release a
cause of death, but Jus
tin Tarovisky, a prison
union official, told The
Associated Press it was
being investigated as a
homicide.
Bulger, the model for
Jack Nicholson’s ruthless
crime boss in the 2006
Martin Scorsese movie,
“The Departed,” led a
largely Irish mob that ran
loan-sharking, gambling
and drug rackets. He also
was an FBI informant
who ratted on the New
England mob, his gang’s
main rival, in an era when
bringing down the Mafia
was a top national priority
for the FBI.
Bulger’s rap sheet
started as a juvenile, and
he spent three years in
Alcatraz, the infamous
island prison off San
Francisco.
Bulger fled Boston in
late 1994 after his FBI
handler, John Connolly
Jr., warned him he was
about to be indicted. With
a $2 million reward on his
head, Bulger became one
of the FBI’s “Ten Most
Wanted” criminals, with
a place just below Osama
bin Laden.
There was no love lost
for Bulger on the Boston
streets he once ruled.
Patricia Donahue’s hus
band, Michael, was killed
in 1982 when he offered a
ride home to a man alleg
edly targeted for death by
Bulger because he was
talking to the FBI. “I’d like
to open up a champagne
bottle and celebrate,” she
told WBZ-TV on Tuesday.
Tom Duffy, a retired
state police detective who
searched for Bulger and
was a consultant on “The
Departed,” called word of
Bulger’s death “celebra
tory news.”
When the extent of
his crimes and the FBI’s
role in overlooking them
became public in the late
1990s, Bulger became a
source of embarrassment for
the FBI. During the years he
was a fugitive, the FBI bat
tled a public perception that
it had not tried very hard to
find him.
After more than 16 years
on the run, Bulger was cap
tured at age 81 in Santa
Monica, California, where
he had been living in a rent-
controlled apartment near
the beach with his longtime
girlfriend, Catherine Greig.
In 2013, he was convicted
in the slayings, as well as
extortion, and money-laun
dering after a sensational
racketeering trial that
included graphic testimony
from three former Bulger
cohorts: a hit man, a protege
and a partner. He was sen
tenced nearly five years ago
to two consecutive life sen
tences plus five years.
Bulger had just been
moved to USP Hazelton, a
high-security prison with an
adjacent minimum security
satellite camp in Bruceton
Mills, West Virginia. He had
been in a prison in Florida
before a stopover at a trans
fer facility in Oklahoma City.
Federal Bureau of Prisons
officials and his attorney had
declined to comment on why
he was being moved.
A lawyer who represented
Bulger blamed the gangster’s
death on decisions made by
the Bureau of Prisons.
“He was sentenced to life
in prison, but as a result of
decisions by the Federal
Bureau of Prisons, that sen
tence has been changed to
the death penalty,” attor
ney J.W. Carney Jr. said in
a statement.
Bulger, nicknamed
“Whitey” for his bright plati
num hair, grew up in a gritty
South Boston housing project
and became known as one of
the most ruthless gangsters in
Boston. His younger brother,
William Bulger, became one
of the most powerful politi
cians in Massachusetts, lead
ing the state Senate for 17
years.
In working-class “Southie,”
Bulger was known for helping
old ladies across the street
and giving turkey dinners to
his neighbors at Thanksgiv
ing. He had a kind of Robin
Hood-like image among
some locals, but authorities
said he would put a bullet in
the brain of anyone who he
even suspected of double
crossing him.
“You could go back in the
annals of criminal history
and you’d be hard-pressed to
find anyone as diabolical as
Bulger,” said Duffy.
“Killing people was his
first option. They don’t get
any colder than him,” Duffy
said after Bulger was finally
captured in June 2011.
Bulger was accused of
strangling Debra Davis, the
26-year-old girlfriend of his
partner, Stephen “The Rifle
man” Flemmi, and Deborah
Hussey, also 26, the daughter
of Flemmi’s common-law
wife. In both cases, Bulger
insisted on pulling out the
women’s teeth so they would
be difficult to identify,
Flemmi testified.
During a search of his
Santa Monica apartment,
agents found over $800,000 in
cash and more than 30 guns,
many hidden in holes in the
walls. A property manager at
the building said Bulger and
Greig, who used the names
Charles and Carol Gasko,
had lived there for 15 years
and always paid the rent-con-
trolled rate of $1,145 a month
in cash.
They were caught days
after the FBI began a new
publicity campaign focusing
on Greig. The daytime TV
announcements showed pho
tos of Greig and noted that
she was known to frequent
beauty salons and have her
teeth cleaned once a month.
A woman from Iceland
who knew Bulger and Greig
in Santa Monica saw a report
on CNN about the latest pub
licity campaign and called
in the tip that led agents to
them.
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