Saturday, January 09, 2021

NOT A MAX BUT STILL

Boeing 737 carrying 62 people feared to have crashed into sea near Jakarta

Suspected debris found in sea after Sriwijaya Air flight went missing shortly after  takeoff

Febriana Firdaus and Rebecca Ratcliffe
Sat 9 Jan 2021 
 
People at a temporary crisis centre organised in the domestic terminal of Soekarno-Hatta International airport, after the plane’s disappearance. Photograph: Willy Kurniawan/Reuters

An Indonesian passenger plane carrying 62 people that went missing on Saturday is feared to have crashed, after suspected debris was found in the sea north of Jakarta.

The Boeing 737-500, which departed from Jakarta’s international airport at about 2.36pm, lost contact four minutes later. Data from the flight tracker FlightRadar24 said Sriwijaya Air flight SJ182 had reached an altitude of nearly 11,000ft (3,350 metres) before dropping to 250ft.

The plane was carrying 50 passengers, including seven children, among them three infants, and 12 crew members, according to the transport ministry. It was scheduled to make a 90-minute journey over the Java Sea to Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan province on Borneo island.

A local fisherman reported that he had seen possible debris at 3.30pm, when an explosion was first heard, according to Deby Riana Sumanthi, the head of maritime agriculture and food security for the sub-department of Thousand Island-Jakarta

Footage of suspected wreckage was also broadcast on Indonesian TV. “We found some cables, a piece of jeans, and pieces of metal on the water,” a security official told CNNIndonesia.com. It has not been confirmed that the debris came from the flight.

Agus Haryono, a rescue agency official, told Reuters that 50 people were searching for the aircraft and would continue working into the night. Indonesia’s transport ministry said it was investigating the incident.

“A Sriwijaya plane from Jakarta to Pontianak with call sign SJY182 has lost contact,” said ministry spokesman Adita Irawati. “It last made contact at 2:40 pm (0740 GMT).”

The president director of Sriwijaya Air, Jefferson Irwin Jauwena, said the airline was coordinating with Basarnas, the National Search and Rescue Agency and the National Transport Safety Committee. The airline, which was founded in 2003, mostly flies within Indonesia and has an otherwise solid safety record.

The plane, a Boeing 737-500, does not use the same software system as those involved in two crashes that killed hundreds of people and left Boeing in crisis, according to Reuters.

In October 2018, 189 people were killed when a Lion Air Boeing 737 Max jet crashed into the sea minutes after taking off from Jakarta for a domestic flight. Months later, a Boeing 737 Max 8 crashed in Ethiopia, killing all 157 people onboard. The US justice department fined Boeing $2.5bn last week after the company was charged with fraud and conspiracy in connection with two crashes.

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.”

Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago nation, has also been criticised for poor safety standards in its aviation industry, which has been plagued by accidents. An AirAsia plane crashed in 2014 with the loss of 162 lives.


Indonesia plane missing: Boeing lost contact after dropping 'more than 10,000ft in less than a minute'

Sat, 9 January 2021




A search and rescue operation is under way in Indonesia after contact was lost with a Boeing 737-500 plane on a local flight.

An Indonesian Transport Ministry spokesman said the Sriwijaya Air flight SJ 182 was flying from the capital Jakarta to Pontianak City in West Kalimantan province on the island of Borneo. The last contact was at 2.40pm local time (7.40am in the UK), it said.

Tracking service Flightradar24 said on Twitter that the flight "lost more than 10,000ft (3,000m) of altitude in less than one minute" about four minutes after departure.

The Indonesian Navy has determined the plane's co-ordinates and ships have been deployed to the location, Navy official Abdul Rasyid said.

Suspected debris has been located in waters north of Jakarta, an official from the Basarnas rescue agency told the Reuters news agency, although it has not been confirmed that it is from the missing plane. Fishermen spotted metal objects believed to be parts of an aircraft in the Thousand Islands, a chain of islands north of Jakarta, on Saturday afternoon.

Friends and relatives of people on the flight have been seen in television footage praying and hugging each other as they wait for news at the airports in Jakarta and Pontianak airport.

Some 62 people were on board, including crew. Ten of the passengers were children, the rescue agency said.

In its latest statement, the airline said it was still gathering information on the incident.

"We are aware of media reports from Jakarta regarding Sriwijaya Air flight SJ-182," it said.

"Our thoughts are with the crew, passengers, and their families. We are in contact with our airline customer and stand ready to support them during this difficult time."

Indonesian Transportation Ministry spokesperson Adita Irawati said: "The missing plane is currently under investigation and under co-ordination with the National Search and Rescue Agency and the National Transportation Safety Committee."

A spokeswoman for Boeing said: "We are aware of media reports from Jakarta, and are closely monitoring the situation. We are working to gather more information."

A plane flying from Jakarta to Pontianak would spend most of the 90-minute flight over the Java Sea. Sriwijaya Air is one of Indonesia's discount carriers, flying to dozens of domestic and international destinations.

Indonesia is the world's largest archipelago nation, with more than 260 million people.

The missing plane is not a Boeing 737 Max, the model involved in two major accidents in recent years - the first of which involved a crash in Indonesia.

The Lion Air 737 MAX, carrying 189 passengers and crew, crashed into the Java Sea just minutes after taking off from Jakarta in October 2018, killing everyone on board.

It was the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since 1997, when 234 people were killed on a Garuda flight near Medan on Sumatra island.

And in December 2014, an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore crashed into the sea, killing 162 people.

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