Authorities on Sunday continued their search for a Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500 believed to have crashed into the sea with 62 people on board shortly after departing from Jakarta a day earlier.
Sriwijaya Air Flight SJ182 is thought to have crashed near Laki Island, a part of the Thousand Islands chain, just north of the capital, officials said.
“The coordinates of (where the plane crashed) have been found and we have shared them to all of our warships at sea,” Rear Admiral Abdul Rasyid, commander of the Navy's Western Fleet, supervising the western part of Indonesia, told reporters.
Suasana Pencarian melalui Udara dengan menggunakan Helikopter Basarnas AW 139 HR1301 di atas Perairan Teluk Jakarta. (10/1) pic.twitter.com/yB4NdWEQRl
— KANTOR SAR JAKARTA (@KANSAR_JKT) January 10, 2021
The plane departed Jakarta's Sukarno-Hatta International Airport at 2: 36 p.m. bound for the West Kalimantan provincial capital of Pontianak.
One minute after takeoff, the plane requested to ascend to 29,000 feet, according to Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi. However, at 2: 40 p.m., air traffic control inquired with the pilot as to why the plane was heading northwest instead of on its expected path.
A few seconds later, the plane disappeared from radar, the minister said.
pic.twitter.com/OKp7zImjE0
— KANTOR SAR JAKARTA (@KANSAR_JKT) January 10, 2021
Flight tracking website Flightradar24 shows that after taking off, the plane climbed to 10,900 feet in approximately four minutes, but then went into a steep descent over the next 21 seconds, with the last received data placing the plane at 250 feet from the water's surface.
The latest data on #SJ182, now including processed granular ADS-B data. https://t.co/x3nigpk93Y pic.twitter.com/dZyWw7gYqq
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) January 9, 2021
Families and friends of those on the ill-fated aircraft were shown on television waiting for news about their loved ones at both Jakarta and Pontianak airports.
“I waited for my wife and three children to arrive but wondered what had happened after I waited for two hours and the plane had not had arrived,” Yasman Jay told Kompas TV before breaking into tears.
Officials told reporters they have found suspected debris from the missing aircraft, including parts of an airplane, electrical cables and clothes, in the sea.
The cause of the crash is not immediately known. Local fishermen told television networks there was heavy rain at the time of the incident and they had witnessed the plane plunging into the sea. They also reported hearing two explosions.
Soerjanto Tjahjono, chief of the National Transportation Safety Committee, said his team is still compiling data for investigation, but stressed, “the most important now is to save and rescue” the missing people.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board will also be involved in the investigation as the plane was made in the United States.
Sriwijaya Air CEO Jefferson Irwin Jauwena said the plane was “airworthy” and the flight was delayed about an hour from its scheduled departure time due to heavy rain.
Among the 62 people on board the Boeing 737-500 were 10 children, including three infants, and 12 crew members. All were Indonesians.
Established in 2003, Sriwijaya Air is the country's third-largest airline and is regarded as having a good safety record. Before Saturday's crash, it had been involved in five minor incidents none with casualties.
The crash is the second involving a Boeing 737 aircraft in Indonesia in recent years. In October 2018, a Boeing 737 MAX8 operated by low-cost carrier Lion Air crashed off the northeast coast of Jakarta immediately after takeoff, killing all 189 passengers and crew.
The Lion Air incident, along with another involving an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft in 2019, caused the grounding of Boeing's 737 MAX airliner. The Boeing 737-500 model involved in Saturday's crash is an earlier generation that was not affected by the issue.
