62 feared dead as jet ‘vanishes’ over Java Sea
A PLANE carrying 62 people, i ncluding seven children, is feared to have crashed into the sea shortly after taking off from Indonesia’s capital yesterday, leaving no survivors.
The Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737500 passenger plane l eft the runway at Soekarno-Hatta international airport in Jakarta at 2.36pm for a 90-minute flight over the Java Sea to Pontianak on Borneo island.
But just four minutes later, the aircraft plunged nearly 10,000ft in just 60 seconds, losing all contact with air traffic control.
Local fishermen said they saw the jet plummet into the sea. There were thought to be 50 passengers, including seven children – three of whom were infants – and 12 crew members on board.
All 62 were reportedly Indonesian nationals. Despite a massive search operation involving dozens of vessels and four Indonesian navy warships, no confirmed wreckage had been found last night.
However, a fisherman called Solihin, aged 22, told the BBC that he had been at sea when the aircraft dropped out of the sky.
‘The plane fell like lightning into the sea and exploded in the water. It was pretty close to us, the shards of a kind of plywood almost hit my ship,’ he said, adding: ‘We thought it was a bomb or a tsunami since we saw a big splash from the water after the explosion. It was raining heavily and the weather was so bad so it is difficult to see around clearly.’
Last night, distraught relatives waited for news at the airport. One, Yaman Zai, said his wife and three children were on the flight.
‘My wife sent me a picture of the baby today… How could my heart not be torn into pieces?’ he said. Holding up a photo of his eldest daughter, he added: ‘I will never meet her again.’
The Boeing reached an altitude of nearly 11,000ft before plunging to 250ft in less than a minute, according to data from FlightRadar24.
Footage of suspected wreckage was broadcast on local TV and a security official told CNN Indonesia: ‘ We found some cables, a piece of jeans, and pieces of metal on the water.’
Last night, Bambang Suryo Aji, the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency’s deputy head of operations and preparedness, said the possible plane debris was being examined to determine whether it was indeed from the missing jet.
In October 2018, 189 people were killed when a Lion Air Boeing 737 Max jet slammed into the Java Sea about 12 minutes after take-off from
‘It plunged nearly 10,000ft in a matter of 60 seconds’
Jakarta on a routine one-hour flight. Months later, a similar Boeing Max aircraft crashed in Ethiopia, killing all 157 people on board.
Last week, the United States Justice Department fined Boeing $2.5 billion (£2.08 billion) over claims it defrauded regulators in connection with the two crashes.
However, the Boeing jet believed to have crashed yesterday was not a Max model.
Last night, a spokesman for Boeing said the company was were ‘closely monitoring the situation’ and ‘working to gather more information’.