Indonesian passenger plane with over 60 onboard crashes into sea soon after takeoff

JAKARTA –

A domestic Airline of Indonesia, Sriwijaya Air plane carrying more than 60 people crashed into the Java Sea after taking off from the Indonesian capital on Saturday.

A spokeswoman for the transport ministry said the Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737 lost contact near West Kalimantan province when it was en route to Pontianak on the island of Borneo

According to airliner, the Boeing 737-524 had 62 people aboard.

A website that monitors flights, Flightradar24.com, said that the ill-fated plane took off amid heavy rain and it lost lost more than 10,000 feet of altitude in less than 60 seconds.

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 Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency also confirmed that it had found debris of the 26-year-old plane in waters just northwest of Jakarta.

It added that darkness had hampered the search activities.