Indonesian Jetliner Crashes Into the Sea After Takeoff, Carrying 62
The Boeing 737-500, a Sriwijaya Air flight, had taken off from Jakarta, the capital. Officials said they found body parts and possibly part of the wreckage.
Indonesian Navy crewmen on Saturday holding a piece of presumed wreckage from a Sriwijaya Air plane that crashed the night before shortly after takeoff near Jakarta, the capital.
Indonesian Navy crewmen on Saturday holding a piece of presumed wreckage from a Sriwijaya Air plane that crashed the night before shortly after takeoff near Jakarta, the capital.Credit…Adek Berry/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Hannah Beech and Muktita Suhartono
Jan. 9, 2021Updated 10:00 p.m. ET
BANGKOK — A passenger jet carrying more than 60 people crashed into the Java Sea on Saturday, minutes after taking off from the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, Indonesian officials said, bringing renewed attention to a nation long cursed by aviation disasters.
The fate of the plane, a Boeing 737-500, also carried the potential to ensnare the troubled American aviation giant in more bad publicity, even though the cause of the crash had yet to be determined.
Indonesia’s Transportation Ministry said that the last contact with the plane, Sriwijaya Air Flight 182, was at 2:40 p.m. local time. The plane was bound for the city of Pontianak on the island of Borneo. It had 62 people aboard, according to the Transportation Ministry. Four minutes after taking off amid a heavy monsoon season rain, following a bad weather delay, the 26-year-old plane lost more than 10,000 feet in altitude in less than 60 seconds, according to Flightradar24, the flight-tracking service.
10 mi.
20 km.
© Mapbox © OpenStreetMap
Source: Flight path from Flightradar24
The New York Times
On Sunday morning, the Jakarta police said that body parts and some clothes from the passengers had been found in waters just northwest of the Indonesian capital. The Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency said the night before that it had found pieces of debris believed to be from the plane’s wreckage, but that darkness and inclement weather had impeded its search. The area where the remains and debris were located is known as the Thousand Islands.
The Indonesian authorities urged close family members to provide DNA samples or dental and medical records to speed up the identification process of the remains.
Boeing acknowledged Saturday’s crash, saying on Twitter: “Our thoughts are with the crew, passengers, and their families. We are in contact with our airline customers and stand ready to support them during this difficult time.” CFM International, which manufactured the plane’s engines, said in a statement that it was providing technical assistance to the Indonesian authorities and to Sriwijaya Air.
The aviation sector in Indonesia, a developing country of thousands of inhabited islands, has been plagued by crashes and safety lapses for years. As Indonesian airlines, particularly low-cost carriers, have grown rapidly to cover a vast archipelago, the domestic aviation industry has been undermined by shoddy aircraft maintenance and cavalier adherence to safety standards.
For years, top Indonesians carriers were banned from flying to the United States and Europe by those countries’ regulators. Budget airlines would start up business, only to declare bankruptcy after deadly crashes.
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But Sriwijaya Air, which is Indonesia’s third-largest carrier and began operations in 2003, had never suffered a fatal crash.
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And the Sriwijaya Air plane that disappeared from radar screens on Saturday was from Boeing’s 737 500 series, which is considered a workhorse model with years of safe flying associated with it.
The New York Times