An Indonesian passenger plane with more than 50 people on board has gone missing shortly after taking off from the country’s capital city of Jakarta, according to reports from the BBC.
It is believed that the Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737 lost contact with officials at the airport shortly after it took off for Pontianak in West Kalimantan province.
According to Flight tracking website Flightradar24.com, the aircraft lost more than 3000 metres of altitude in less than one minute. This dramatic loss in altitude happened four minutes after the flight initially took off.
Sriwijaya Air flight #SJ182 lost more than 10.000 feet of altitude in less than one minute, about 4 minutes after departure from Jakarta.https://t.co/fNZqlIR2dz pic.twitter.com/MAVfbj73YN
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) January 9, 2021
Surachman, a local government official, told CNN Indonesia that a local fisherman reportedly found what appeared to be wreckage of the aircraft in waters near Jakarta
The plane involved in the disappearance is a Boeing 737-500, according to Flightradar24.com. The plane is not a 737 Max, the Boeing model involved in two major crashes in recent years.
Search and rescue efforts were underway. This is a developing story.
Picture: Twitter/@gulf_news
