An Indonesian plane carrying 62 passengers crashes … including 10 children
The Indonesian Ministry of Transport announced, that a plane belonging to the “Sriwijaya” Indonesian Airlines has crashed near Lucky Island. The Navy confirmed that the location of the crash has been identified, and rescue teams will start searching for survivors.
The Indonesian Minister of Transport said that he lost contact with the ill-fated plane 4 minutes after it took off from Jakarta.
A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Transport said earlier that the missing plane was carrying 62 people, after taking off from the Indonesian capital on a domestic flight. Adita Irawati said that a Boeing 737-500 took off from Jakarta at around 1:56 pm, and lost contact with the control tower at 2:40 pm.
For its part, the airline said in a statement that the plane was on a 90-minute flight from Jakarta to Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan province on the Indonesian island of Borneo, with 56 passengers, including 10 children, and six crew members on board, noting that the plane was in good case.
The Indonesian Navy also announced that it has sent two ships to the supposed crash site.
Meanwhile, local media reported that parts of the wreckage in North Jakarta were found, believed to be from the plane, and some sites published videos of what was said to be the wreckage.
In addition, the Flight Radar 24 aircraft tracking service on Twitter stated that the Indonesian plane had descended more than ten thousand feet from the altitude at which it was flying in less than one minute, only about four minutes after take-off.
She explained that the registration details contained in the tracking data indicate that the aircraft was a Boeing 737-500 and entered service 27 years ago.
It is noteworthy that Indonesia, the largest archipelago country in the world with a population of more than 260 million people, is constantly suffering from land, sea and air transport accidents due to overcrowding on ferries, old infrastructure and poor safety standards.
