[ad_1]
Divers in Indonesia have located parts of the wreckage of the Boeing 737-500 plane that crashed with 62 people on board.
“We received reports from the diver team that the visibility in the water is good and clear, allowing the discovery of some parts of the plane,” Air Chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto said in a statement Sunday morning.
“We are sure that is the point where the plane crashed,” he said, adding that the objects found included broken pieces of fuselage with registration parts of the aircraft.
Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 It was flying from the capital Jakarta to the island of Borneo when it crashed about four minutes after takeoff on Saturday. The last contact was made at 2:40 p.m. M. Local time (7.40 am in the UK).
There have been no signs of survivors.
Pieces of debris found between Lancang Island and Laki Island
Indonesian President Joko Widodo urged people to pray for the victims.
“I represent the government and all Indonesians by expressing my deepest condolences on this tragedy,” he said.
“We are doing everything we can to save the victims. We pray together that the victims can be found.”
Previously, rescuers said they found body parts and were investigating signs found “at two points” that could be the plane’s black box.
The discovery came after crews on a Navy ship picked up another signal from the plane that matched the coordinates of the last contact made by the pilots. Divers were then dispatched to search the area.
Use the Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Debris found at sea in search of missing planes
More than 12 hours and little is known about the causes of the accident.
Tracking service Flightradar24 said on Twitter that the flight “lost more than 10,000 feet (3,000 m) of altitude in less than a minute” about four minutes after departure.
While fishermen in the area around the Thousand Islands, a chain of islands north off the coast of Jakarta, reported hearing an explosion around 2.30pm local time on Saturday.
Relatives of passengers arrive at a crisis center
“We heard something exploded, we thought it was a bomb or a tsunami, because after that we saw the big splash of the water,” fisherman Solihin, who has only one name, told The Associated Press.
“It was raining a lot and the weather was so bad. Therefore it is difficult to see the surroundings clearly.
“But we can see the splash and a big wave after the sounds. We were very shocked and saw directly the debris from the plane and the fuel around our ship.”
The missing aircraft is a Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500. File Image: AP
Sriwijaya Air Chairman Jefferson Irwin Jauwena said the plane, which was 26 years old and previously used by airlines in the United States, was fit to fly.
He also revealed that he had flown to the city of Pontianak and Pangkal Pinang on the same day with no problems.
In October 2018, a Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft operated by Leon air it sank in the Java Sea just minutes after taking off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board.
It was the worst air disaster in Indonesia since 1997, when 234 people were killed on a Garuda flight near Medan on the island of Sumatra.
The aircraft involved in Saturday’s incident did not have the automated flight control system that played a role in the Lion Air crash and another 737 Max 8 accident in Ethiopia five months later, leading to the grounding of the Max 8 for 20 months. .
And in December 2014, an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore crashed into the sea, killing 162 people.
