Boeing 737 crashes with 62 people on board

A Boeing 737-500 passenger plane of the Sriwijaya Airline has gone missing shortly after take-off from the Indonesian capital Jakarta. The plane is estimated to have around 62 people on board.

Out of the 62 people on board the flight SJ182, 56 were passengers, including seven children and three infants, and there were two pilots and four cabin crew according to sources. The flight was headed from Jakarta for a 90 minute trip to Pontianak on the island of Borneo. However, the flight only lasted 4 minutes as the plane plummeted from 10,900 ft to only 250 ft in less than one minute.

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

The Boeing 737-500 plane with registration number PK-CLC (MSN 27323) was more than 26 years old. The search and rescue mission for the missing plane is underway according to the local authorities but it is believed that the plane most likely crashed as several images have been found on social media claiming to be the debris from the aircraft.

BBC Indonesia even reported that some fishermen saw the plane crash saying, “The plane fell like lightning into the sea and exploded in the water.”

The weather might have played a part in the crash of the ill-fated plane as a passenger of another flight stated that his flight had to attempt two landings to reach the airport at almost the same time that the ill-fated plane took off. In October 2018, an Indonesian Lion Air flight plunged into the sea about 12 minutes after take-off from Jakarta killing 189 people and it was believed that the weather played a significant role in that crash.

Image Source: Mirror