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.

Read also: Indonesia's Sriwijaya Air loses contact with plane after take-off

Seconds later, the aircraft went into a steep dive from an altitude of 10,900 feet to 250 ft in less than one minute, before disappearing from radar, according to flight tracking site Flightradar24.

Authorities believed the plane had plunged into the waters between Lancang and Laki islands just off Jakarta’s coast.

Local fishermen said they had witnessed the plane plunging into the sea, with some claiming to hear two explosions. Officials found debris suspected to be from the plane, including parts of the aircraft, electrical cables and clothes.

In Pontianak’s Supadio International Airport, relatives were waiting for the arrival of those on the ill-fated flight before learning the news. A dreadful atmosphere unfolded that evening in both Pontianak and Jakarta airport.

Read also: Distraught families mourn members lost in Sriwijaya crash

Among the all-Indonesian victims were Mulyadi Tamsir, a politician and former chairman of the Association of Islamic Students (HMI), as well as businesspeople and a newlywed couple heading for their wedding celebration.

The active crew members were Captain Afwan, first officer Diego Mamahit and four flight attendants. Six others were deadheading, including Captain Didik Gunardi and first officer Fadly Satrianto.

Family members of the victims said some passengers had been transferred to flight SJ182 from an earlier NAM Air flight. Sriwijaya said the transfer was made because the feeder flight was not operating.

Search and rescue

Soon after learning of the accident, the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas), the Indonesian Navy, the National Police and the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) formed a joint search team.

Crisis centers were set up in Tanjung Priok Port in North Jakarta, as well as in Soekarno-Hatta and Supadio airports. On the same day, the navy located the exact coordinates of the crash site, and search and rescue operations immediately started.

By Sunday afternoon, authorities had pinpointed the location of flight data and cockpit voice recorders — the two so-called black boxes that are key to explaining how the crash happened. However, the presence of mud and wreckage made it difficult to immediately find them.

Read also: Authorities locate black boxes from downed Sriwijaya Air plane

Two days later on Tuesday afternoon, on Jan. 12, divers retrieved the flight data recorder, along with the detached underwater acoustic beacons of the cockpit recorder. The cockpit recorder itself is still missing to date, while the KNKT is examining data from the first black box.

Rescue operations have continued despite bad weather hindering the process on several occasions. At least 4,100 personnel have been involved in the operations, equipped with over 62 marine vessels and 15 aircraft. Some personnel have tested reactive to COVID-19.

The search was supposed to end on Monday but has been extended to Thursday.

“After that, we will reevaluate and decide what next,” Basarnas chief Air Marshal Bagus Puruhito said last week.

Apart from human remains, the search is focused on the cockpit recorder, without its guidance signals. On Sunday, the joint team conducted aerial surveillance over three locations, above-water searches at six locations and underwater searches at four locations. 

It has collected 308 body bags of human remains, 58 bags of small debris and 54 large pieces of aircraft material as of Sunday evening, on Jan. 17. No survivors have been found.

The disaster victim identification unit at the Kramat Jati Police Hospital in East Jakarta is identifying the bodies after collecting pre- and post-death data, including personal files, fingerprints and DNA. The police have received 351 DNA samples to identify all 62 victims and 188 body bags of human remains by Sunday.

“We’re not able to rush [to identify the victims]. Due to COVID-19, we cannot stay in the morgue for long because some of the dead bodies in this hospital are COVID-19 victims,” said DNA laboratory head Sr. Comr. Ratna.

As of Sunday, forensic investigators have identified 29 victims, including deadheading first officer Fadly.

What caused the accident?

The cause of the crash remains unclear. Preliminary findings from the KNKT suggested that the plane had not exploded in mid-air and while it was falling, it was still capable of transmitting data.

“Data recording down to 250 feet indicates that the aircraft’s systems were still functioning and capable of transmitting data. From this, we suspect that the engine was still on before hitting the water,” said KNKT head Soerjanto Tjahjanto.

Its findings are strengthened by the distribution of debris, as well as the discovery of a turbine disc with a damaged fan blade, which indicates that the aircraft was still intact and the engine was working before the crash.

Sriwijaya president director Jefferson Irwin Jauwena has said that the 26-year-old jet had been airworthy before the flight and that the delay that day was not because of machinery failures but heavy rain.

Read also: Sriwijaya flew old planes and neglected routes to become No. 3 carrier

The KNKT is working with the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) to evaluate the pre-flight weather in Jakarta.

Founded in 2003 to serve destinations in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, Sriwijaya Air has recorded four safety incidents during landing. Flight SJ182 is its fifth incident since 2008 but the first fatal crash to occur during takeoff, according to FlightGlobal. This includes a landing incident in August 2008 which, according to KNKT, “fatally injured” a farmer on the ground.

The plane for flight SJ182, which the company bought in 2012 and named Citra, was out of service for months since March last year due to COVID-19 restrictions, although experts are divided as to whether it showed good maintenance or a possible factor for technical issues being developed.

The Transportation Ministry inspected the plane and issued a certificate of airworthiness before it resumed service in December 2020. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has ordered a speedup of the investigation, the search and the payment of compensation for the victims’ families.

Each identified victim’s family is set to receive Rp 50 million (US$3,500) in compensation from state-owned insurance company PT Jasa Raharja.