An Indonesian airline has been reported to have crashed down to the sea. The airline jet, Boeing 737 lost contact with the air traffic control on Saturday after taking off. The flight tracking data showed that the plane plunged into a steep dived several minutes after the take-off.
It has not been cleared how many passengers and the crew were aboard. The airline is Sriwijaya Air’s Boeing 737-500, which has a passenger capacity of at least 130. The airline left Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta international airport and has gone within the area of the deep sea before it crashed into the ocean.
Though about 62 passengers and crew were listed on an unconfirmed report of a manifest and this includes seven (7) children and three infants, a local media reported.
The usual flight duration is around 90 minutes over the Java Sea that is between Indonesia’s Kalimantan and Java island, the country’s section of island called Borneo.
The data extracted from FlightRadar24 shows the plane reached an altitude of almost 11,000 feet which is equivalent to 3,350 metres before sliding to 250 feet. It then lost contact with the air traffic control.
“Sriwijaya Air flight #SJ182 lost more than 10,000 feet of height in less than one (1) minute, about 4 minutes after it departure from the airport,” the tracking agency said on the official Twitter page.
A popular broadcast, Kompas TV however quoted local fishermen to have said they had found debris close to area of the islands just off the coast of Jakarta, but it could not be instantly confirmed if it belonged to the said missing jet.
Transport ministry of Indonesia said it is currently probing the incident.
“A Sriwijaya (Air) plane from Jakarta to Pontianak on Borneo island with a call sign number SJY182 has lost contact,” said spokesman Adita Irawati for the ministry
“the last contact made was 2:40 pm (0740 GMT).”
The said budget airline which has about 19 healthy Boeing jets that usually fly to destinations in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, said only that it was investigating the loss of contact.
The search and rescue agency of Indonesia and the National Transportation Safety Commission were also investigating, the spokes man said.
Some time October 2018, 189 passengers were killed when Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX jet crashed into Java Sea within 12 minutes after it took-off from Jakarta on routine one-hour journey.
Indonesia’s aviation has long suffered from low reputation for poor safety. Her airlines were once banned from entering United states and European airspace.