Indonesian Passenger Plane Crashes into Sea with 188 on Board

An Indonesian passenger plane, Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX 8, has crashed into the sea with 188 people on board, a few minutes after taking off from the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

The plane on flight JT 610 was on a scheduled flight to Pangkal Pinang, the main town in the Bangka Belitung Islands. The plane lost contact with the ground and was later tracked crossing the sea. It remains uncertain if there are indeed any survivors.

The flight, in a new type of aircraft, flew from Jakarta at 06:20 local time on Monday morning (23:30 GMT on Sunday) and was due for arrival at Depati Amir Airport in Pangkal Pinang. The flight was expected to take an hour but around 13 minutes into the air, air control authorities lost communication with the plane pilots.

The head of Pangkal Pinang’s search and rescue office, Danang Priandoko, said that the pilot had earlier requested to return to Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta airport.

The plane had on board 178 adults, one infant and two babies, two pilots and five cabin crew according to officials who addressed a press conference.

Debris, an oil slick, and personal items suspected to be from the aircraft have been spotted floating in the sea according to tweets made by the head of Indonesia’s disaster agency, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.

“The plane crashed into the water about 30 to 40m deep, we’re still searching for the remains of the plane,” Search and Rescue Agency spokesman Yusuf Latif told AFP news agency.

The aircraft, according to Flightradar24, a Flight-tracking website, had been delivered to Lion Air in August with its model only being in commercial use since 2016.

Meant for short-haul travel, the single-aisle plane can fit a maximum of 210 passengers.

Lion Air, Indonesia’s low-cost carrier, operates domestic flights and several international flights to South East Asia, the Middle East, and Australia. The carrier has previously experience problems on safety and poor management which has had it banned from flying into European airspace till 2016 when the ban was lifted.