Indonesia may review the lower limit of its airfares and consider increasing the rates set by low-cost carriers, the transport minister said on Thursday (Nov 1).

Budi Karya Sumadi added that President Joko Widodo had ordered a review of all flight safety regulations after this week's crash of a jet operated by budget carrier Lion Air with 189 aboard.

"According to the regulations, both international and ours, (an accident) like this should not happen. Because that happened, then we had to evaluate," Sumadi told a news conference.

Lion Air flight JT610 was en route from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang on Monday when it crashed into the sea soon after take-off.

On Thursday, divers found the black box from the crashed jet, which should help explain why the almost new Boeing 737 MAX 8 went down, killing all on board.

The device, identified as the flight data recorder, will be handed over to Indonesia's transportation safety committee.

Strong currents have hampered efforts to find the fuselage of the plane, with efforts complicated by the presence of energy pipelines in the area.

The ill-fated aircraft, which had been in operation since August, had experienced technical problems on its previous flight the day before it crashed. It had reported unusual variations in altitude and airspeed in the first several minutes of flight after taking off from Bali on Oct 28. 

Lion Air chief executive Edward Sirait acknowledged reports of technical problems with the aircraft, but said maintenance had been carried out "according to procedure" before it was cleared to fly again.

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