Plane carrying over 62 passengers feared crashed
There is palpable anxiety in Indonesia as a passenger plane with 62 people on board went missing shortly after taking off from the country’s capital city, Jakarta.
According to BBC, officials said the Boeing 737 plane belonging to Sriwijaya Air contact en route to Pontianak.
Meanwhile, it is suspected that the plane might have crashed into the sea as some residents of the island near where it disappeared said they had found objects they believed were from it.
https://twitter.com/AlexInAir/status/1347853130411761664
Legit gathers that eyewitnesses said they had seen and heard at least one explosion.
Fisherman Solihin, an eyewitness said he had witnessed a crash and his captain decided to return to land.
His words:
“The plane fell like lightning into the sea and exploded in the water.
“It was pretty close to us, the shards of a kind of plywood almost hit my ship.”
The Indonesian Navy was reportedly deployed to look for the aircraft.
Navy official Abdul Rasyid said the force had determined the plane’s coordinates and ships had been deployed to the location.
Search and rescue efforts were suspended overnight but were due to resume on Sunday, January 10.
In its own reaction, Sriwijaya Air said it was still gathering information about the flight.
Relatives of the passengers have been waiting anxiously at the airport in Pontianak, as well as at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.
Yaman Zai, one of the relatives of the passengers spoke with tears:
“I have four family members on the flight – my wife and my three children.
“[My wife] sent me a picture of the baby today… How could my heart not be torn into pieces?”
BBC noted that the plane is not a 737 Max, the Boeing model which was involved in two major crashes in 2018 and 2019.
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