Most incidents are going to happen at the two parts of the flight with least margin for error, take-off and landing. Even if something bad does go wrong in cruise, you are very far from the ground and glide well, you have lots of chances to fix it and not die.

So, sure, it might not be a coincidence, but "it happened near take off" is not surprising.

Sure, but this plane also showed extremely erratic vertical speed readings, just as Lion Air did. The pilots appeared to be fighting the plane before requesting an emergency turn-around.

"It's not the fall that kills you, it's the ground" is an adage for a reason