KUCHING: Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500 (registered PK-CLC) flight SJ182 between Jakarta and Pontianak, Indonesia has crashed five minutes after take-off. According to the passenger manifest, the flight carried 6 crew members and 56 passengers.
Flightradar24-data indicated the aircraft departed the airport of Jakarta but lost more than 10,000 feet of altitude in less than one minute, about 4 minutes after take-off. The aircraft subsequently went missing and communications with air traffic was lost.
“Sriwijaya Air flight #SJ182 lost more than 10,000 feet of altitude in less than one minute, about 4 minutes after departure from Jakarta,” the tracking agency said on its official Twitter account.
Adita Irawati, the Indonesian Transport Ministry spokesperson, told This Week in Asia that their services are investigating and coordinating the matter with Indonesia’s national search and rescue agency (Basarnas) and the transport safety body (KNKT).
“A Sriwijaya (Air) plane from Jakarta to Pontianak (on Borneo island) with call sign SJY182 has lost contact,” said ministry spokesman Adita Irawati. “It last made contact at 2.40pm.”
A local newspaper writes that the aircraft crashed close to one of the inhabited islands of the Thousand Islands, a chain of islands to the north of Jakarta’s coast.
Broadcaster Kompas TV quoted local fishermen as saying they had found debris near islands off the coast of Jakarta, but it could not be immediately confirmed as having belonged to the missing jet.
Human body parts and debris of Indonesia Sriwijaya Air plane were found, Captain EKo Surya Hadi, commander of Trisula coast guard ship, told a local TV. “We found body parts, life jackets, avtur (aviation turbine fuel) and debris of the plane,” he told the local TV.
Meanwhile, the crash was confirmed by Indonesian Minister of Transportation Budi Karya Sumadi, aviation24.be reported on its website.
Pictures that appeared on social media indicate that debris of the aircraft was found. – Agencies
