Indonesia passenger plane missing after take-off
- by Nick Cohen
- in Industry
- — Jan 10, 2021
Indonesian rescue members carry a body bag containing suspected remains of the Sriwijaya Air plane flight SJ182 which crashed into the sea, at Jakarta International Container Terminal port in Jakarta, Indonesia, January 9, 2021.
'It last made contact at 2:40 pm (0740 GMT)'.
Sriwijaya Air said in a statement it is still gathering more detailed information regarding the flight before it can make any statement.
Sriwijaya Air Flight SJ182, scheduled to fly from Jakarta to Pontianak, capital of West Kalimantan, lost contact with air traffic control soon after takeoff. "We hope to find the location point of the plane crash tonight before search and rescue efforts resume tomorrow morning", said Bambang Suryo Aji, an official of Basarnas.
More than 12 hours since the plane operated by the Indonesian airline lost contact, little is known about what caused the crash.
Video images from the airport showed pictures of relatives of the passengers in tears as they awaited news of what had happened.
Sriwijaya Air said the estimated flight time was about 90 minutes.
A Boeing 737 passenger plane has crashed into the sea after disappearing shortly after take off when it plunged 10,000ft into the ocean.
Transport Ministry spokesman Adita Irawati said the plane had deviated from its normal course and gone in a north-west direction.
A search and rescue operation has kicked off after a plane in Indonesia lost contact shortly after take-off. Pic ADEK BERRY AFP via Getty Images
"There has been contact lost with a Sriwijaya aircraft on the Jakarta - Pontianak route with call sign SJY 182".
According to Simon Hradecky of The Aviation Herald, residents of the islands nearby (Thousand Islands) were out on the sea in two boats when they heard two explosions, then found debris afloat at the sea.
The aircraft is 26-years-old and took its first flight in May 1994.
Like Lion Air, Sriwijaya Air is one of Indonesia's low-priced carriers, with flights both to domestic and worldwide destinations.
Shortly after departure the plane suddenly fell nearly 3 kilometers in less than a minute before crashing into the sea, according to Flightradar24.com.
The airline has a solid safety record until now, with no onboard casualties in four incidents recorded on the Aviation Safety Network database.
The two MAX accidents, in Indonesia in October 2018 and in Ethiopia in March 2019, together claimed 346 lives.
In 2014, an AirAsia Airbus A320 crashed into the sea, killing 162 people, on a flight from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore.
