Indonesian airliner missing with 62 persons on board, search ops underway

A Sriwijaya Air passenger jet carrying 62 people lost contact with air traffic controllers after taking off from Indonesia's capital on Saturday on a domestic flight, officials said.

Indonesian Transportation Ministry spokesperson Adita Irawati said the Boeing 737-500 took off from Jakarta at about 1:56 pm and lost contact with the control tower at 2:40 pm.

The missing plane is currently under investigation and under coordination with the National Search and Rescue Agency and the National Transportation Safety Committee, Irawati said in a statement. Search and rescue operations are underway to locate the missing flight.

A statement released by the airline said the plane was on an estimated 90-minute flight from Jakarta to Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan province on Indonesia's Borneo island. There were 56 passengers, including seven children and three infants, and six crew members onboard.

Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago nation, with more than 260 million people, has been plagued by transportation accidents on land, sea and air because of overcrowding on ferries, aging infrastructure and poorly enforced safety standards.

In 2018, a Lion Air flight (Flight 610, a Boeing 737 Max 8) crashed into the Java Sea in less than 15 minutes after taking off from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta, Indonesia. All 189 passengers and crew in the flight were killed. In 2014, AirAsia flight 8501 (An Airbus A320) crashed into the Java Sea due to bad weather, killing all 155 persons onboard the flight.

(This is a developing story)