Jakarta: A Sriwijaya Air plane thought to have 62 people on board lost contact after taking off from Indonesia’s capital Jakarta on Saturday and rescuers said suspected debris had been found in the sea off the city.
The Boeing 737-500, en route to Pontianak in West Kalimantan, lost contact shortly after taking off just after 2.30 p.m. (0730 GMT), a search and rescue official told local television.
There were 56 passengers on board, including 10 children, an official of the national search and rescue agency Basarnas said. Local media said there were six crew.
Reliable tracking service Flightradar24 said on its Twitter feed that Flight SJ182 “lost more than 10,000 feet of altitude in less than one minute, about 4 minutes after departure from Jakarta”.
Agus Haryono, a rescue agency official, told Reuters that a search and rescue team had found debris suspected to be from the plane in the waters north of Jakarta, but it had not been confirmed that it was from the flight.
Sriwijaya Air, an Indonesian airline, said in a statement it is still gathering more detailed information regarding the flight before it can make a fuller statement.
A Boeing spokeswoman said, “We are aware of media reports from Jakarta, and are closely monitoring the situation. We are working to gather more information”.
Surachman, a local government official, told Kompas TV that fishermen found what appeared to be the wreckage. Other channels showed pictures of suspected wreckage.
“We found some cables, a piece of jeans, and pieces of metal on the water,” Zulkifli, a security official, told CNNIndonesia.com.
Nurhasan, a fisherman in the area known as Thousand Islands, told local media that he and his crew had found several pieces of metal.
The aircraft was 27 years old, according to registration details included in the Flightradar24 tracking data.
It was raining at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport at the time of take-off for Pontianak, around 740 km (460 miles) away. (AGENCY)
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