Indonesia: contact lost with a Boeing 737 on a domestic flight

Steph Deschamps / January 9, 2021

Indonesian company Sriwijawa Air lost contact with a Boeing 737 shortly after take off from the capital Jakarta on Saturday, the transport ministry said without specifying the number of passengers on board immediately.

A Sriwijaya Air aircraft connecting Jakarta to Pontianak on the island of Borneo lost contact shortly after 2:40 p.m. local time (7:40 a.m. GMT), Transport Ministry spokesman Adita Irawati told AFP.

The flight from Jakarta Soekarno-Hata International Airport normally takes 90 minutes to reach Pontianak but disappeared from radar a few minutes after take-off as it flew over the Java Sea. The low-cost company said it was investigating, as well as rescue

According to the local newspaper Republika, quoted by the Janta ka reporter, the aircraft carried 59 passengers on board.

In October 2018, 189 people died in a Boeing 737 MAX crash that crashed into the Java Sea some 12 minutes after takeoff. This crash and another involving the same model in Ethiopia have been blamed on technical flaws, and the US aircraft manufacturer was fined $ 2.5 billion this week for misleading authorities in the process. device approval.