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Indonesia’s Sriwijaya Air lost contact with one of its Boeing 737 passenger jets shortly after take off from the capital Jakarta, the Transport Ministry said.
“A Sriwijaya (Air) plane from Jakarta to Pontianak (on the island of Borneo) with the call sign SJY182 has lost contact,” said ministry spokeswoman Adita Irawati.
The last time he was in contact was at 7.40am Irish time.
It was unclear how many passengers and crew were aboard the Boeing 737-500, which has a capacity of around 130, when it took off from Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.
The usual flight time is around 90 minutes. The budget airline only said it was investigating the incident.
Indonesia’s search and rescue agency and the National Transportation Safety Commission were also investigating, Irawati said.
The plane is a 27-year-old Boeing 737-500, according to registration details included in Flightradar24 tracking data.
It took off shortly after 2:30 pm (local time) and lost contact shortly after, a search and rescue official told local television.
Sriwijaya Air, an Indonesian airline, said in a statement that it is still gathering more detailed information about the flight before it can make a more complete statement.
The national search and rescue agency Basarnas said it could not immediately comment.
In October 2018, 189 people were killed when a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX plane crashed into the Java Sea about 12 minutes after takeoff from Jakarta on a routine one-hour flight.
That accident, and a subsequent fatal flight in Ethiopia, saw Boeing impose $ 2.5 billion in fines on allegations of defrauding regulators overseeing the 737 MAX, which was suspended worldwide after the two fatal crashes.
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