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Indonesia’s Sriwijaya Air tragedy: What we know so far
Families of victims are facing harrowing uncertainty as authorities are working to verify human remains and wreckage pulled from the waters, while investigators are seeking to uncover how the crash took place.
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Navy divers hold wreckage from Sriwijaya Air flight SJ182 during a search and rescue operation at sea near Lancang island on Jan. 10, after the Boeing 737-500 crashed shortly after taking off from Jakarta airport on Jan. 9. (Agence France-Presse/Adek Berry)
A
tragedy involving a Boeing 737-500 passenger jet operated by Sriwijaya Air on a domestic flight has extended a series of Indonesia’s deadliest air accidents in recent years, coming after the 2018 Lion Air crash that killed 189 people.
Families of victims are facing harrowing uncertainty as authorities are working to verify human remains and wreckage pulled from the waters, while investigators are seeking to uncover how the crash took place.
What happened?
On Jan. 9, Sriwijaya Air flight SJ182 was bound for West Kalimantan’s provincial capital of Pontianak in a 90-minute flight from Jakarta. Initially scheduled to start at 1:25 p.m., the flight was delayed due to bad weather.
Amid heavy rain, the plane took off at 2:36 p.m. from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on the outskirts of Jakarta, carrying 62 people, comprising 40 adult passengers, 10 children and 12 crew members.
“At 2:37 p.m., [the plane] was still at an altitude of 1,700 feet [around 500 meters] before it was allowed to rise to 29,000 feet, following instrument standards,” Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi told a Jan. 9 press briefing.
At 2:40 p.m., an air traffic controller contacted the plane after noticing it had veered to a northwesterly direction, off its intended course, but no response was received.
