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JAKARTA, January 9, 2021 (AFP / Reuters): 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 on Saturday.
“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.
“He made contact for the last time at 1440 hours (0740 GMT).”
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 flight had more than 50 people on board.
The usual flight time is around 90 minutes.
The budget airline said it was only investigating the incident.
Indonesia’s search and rescue agency and the National Transportation Safety Commission were also investigating, Irawati said.
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 model, which was grounded around the world after the two fatal crashes.
Meanwhile, Reuters, reported that the reliable tracking service Flightradar24 said on its Twitter account that flight SJ182 “lost more than 10,000 feet of altitude in less than a minute, approximately 4 minutes after leaving Jakarta.”
Surachman, a local government official, said Compass TV that fishermen found what appeared to be the wreckage of a plane in waters north of Jakarta and a search was underway. Other channels showed images of suspected remains.
“We found some cables, a piece of jeans and pieces of metal in the water,” said Zulkifli, a security officer. CNNIndonesia.com.
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 (0730 GMT) and lost contact shortly after, a search and rescue official told local television, Reuters said.
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.
A Boeing 737 MAX operated by Indonesian airline Lion Air crashed off Jakarta in late 2018, killing all 189 passengers and crew. The plane that lost contact on Saturday is a much older model.
The national search and rescue agency Basarnas said it could not immediately comment. – AFP / Reuters
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