A passenger plane belonging to an Indonesian airline, Sriwijaya Air, has been declared missing minutes after it took off from Jakarta, capital of Indonesia, local media reported.
It was unclear how many passengers and crew were aboard the Boeing 737-500, which has a capacity of about 130, when it took off from Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta international airport, reported news agency AFP.
Sriwijaya Air said in a statement it is still gathering more detailed information regarding the flight before it can make any statement.
The aircraft is a 27-year-old Boeing 737-500, according to registration details included in the tracking data.
Reliable tracking service Flightradar24 said in a tweet that Flight SJ182 “lost more than 10,000 feet of altitude in less than one minute, about four minutes after departure from Jakarta”.
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
CNN is reporting that Indonesia’s search and rescue agency has sent a ship to some islands to the north of Jakarta’s coast to check the location where the plane is suspected to have lost contact.
