© Louis Anderson / AFPRelatives of passengers on board missing Sriwijaya Air flight SJY182 wait for news at the Supadio airport in Pontianak.
There are fears for the passengers and crew aboard a domestic flight in Indonesia after officials lost contact.
According to FlightRadar 24, Sriwijaya Air flight SJ182 from Jakarta to Pontianak on the island of Borneo departed from the Indonesian capital's airport at 2.37pm local time (7.37am GMT).
The 452-mile flight is scheduled to take 95 minutes.The Boeing 737-500 flew a short distance north of the airport and above the Java Sea before contact was lost.
Adita Irawati, the Indonesian Transport Ministry spokesperson, told the
South China Morning Post: "At this point, we are investigating and coordinating the matter with Basarnas (the search and rescue agency) and KNKT (the transport safety body). We will release more information as soon as there are developments."
Airfleets.net show the plane as being delivered to Continental Airlines in the US in May 1994. It joined the Sriwijaya Air fleet in 2012.
Sriwijaya Air is a small carrier with a 737-only fleet. According to Airfleets.net it is operating only nine aircraft at present: three -500 series planes, five -800s and one -900.
These are all earlier versions of the 737 than the latest Max variant.In October 2018, a Lion Air Boeing 737 Max crashed in the Java Sea, just north of Jakarta, shortly after take off from the capital.All 189 passengers and crew on board died. It was the first of two tragedies that led to the 20-month grounding of the Max.The Boeing 737 Max re-entered service in December 2020 after comprehensive changes to an anti-stall system that, when activated by a faulty sensor, triggered both crashes.
Comment: RT confirms the
crash and the ensuing
search operation:
Indonesia's transport minister has confirmed that a Sriwijaya Air passenger jet carrying more than 60 people on board crashed into Jakarta Bay.
Transport minister Budi Karya Sumadi said the jet crashed near an island in the bay. He told a news conference that 62 people had been aboard, including 12 crew. Local media is reporting that 56 passengers and six crew were on the aircraft.
Jakarta Provincial Fire and Rescue Service announced on its Twitter account that searchers found debris in Jakarta Bay as they search for the missing plane.
The head of Indonesia's Basarnas search and rescue agency, Bagus Puruhito, said teams had been dispatched to search the waters north of Jakarta but no radio beacon signal had been detected.
Flightradar24 said that Flight SJ182 "lost more than 10,000 feet of altitude in less than one minute, about 4 minutes after departure from Jakarta".
Sriwijaya Air said in a statement it is still gathering more detailed information regarding the flight before it can make any statement.
FlightRadar24 data indicates the plane was a Boeing 737-500 series which was 27 years old. Pontianak is a city on the island of Borneo, part of the Indonesian archipelago.
© DKI Jakarta Provincial Fire & Rescue ServiceRescuers found debris while searching for the missing Sriwijaya Air passenger plane.
Footage on social media shows searchers holding up wires and other bits of material that were found floating in the bay during the operation.
"Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 lost contact. Several debris were found in the area where the Jakarta - Pontianak plane lost contact. Hope to see you soon. The sweeping continues," the fire service and rescue service wrote on Twitter.
The plane was travelling from Indonesian capital Jakarta to Pontianak in West Kalimantan province and lost contact shortly after taking off on Saturday. Local media is reporting that 56 passengers were on board the aircraft.
See also:
If so, then the 737 MAX repairs were conducted by Pfizer.
How's this for a strange, but somehow appropriate for Indonesia, tweet: *Unless you happened to be on that plane.
R.C.