JAKARTA, Indonesia – A Sriwijaya Air passenger plane with 62 people on board lost contact with air traffic controllers after taking off from the Indonesian capital Jakarta for a domestic flight, authorities said.
The Boeing 737-500 left Jakarta around 1:56 p.m. and lost contact with the control tower at 2:20 p.m., the Indonesian Ministry of Transport spokesman explained.
In a statement, the airline explained that the plane was carrying out a flight with an estimated duration of 90 minutes between Jakarta and Pontianak, the capital of the West Kalimantan province, on the island of Borneo. On board the plane were 56 passengers and a crew of 6 members.
Authorities launched a search and rescue operation in coordination with the National Search and Rescue Agency and the National Transportation Security Committee, Irawati added.
A plane covering the route between Jakarta and Pontianak will spend most of the flight over the Java Sea. At the moment there was no indication of where the plane might have fallen as night approached.
Indonesia, the largest archipelago in the world with 260 million inhabitants, has suffered numerous accidents in transport by land, sea and air due to overcrowded ferries, outdated infrastructure and poor safety standards.
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