By Jack Dawin
Sriwijaya Air flight SJ182 Radar Contact Lost After Departure from Jakarta
A Boeing 737-500 that departed from Jakarta Airport, Indonesia, has lost radar contact and has presumed to have crashed in the Java Sea whilst operating a scheduled flight to Pontianak, Indonesia.
Flight SJ182, operated by Sriwijaya Air took off from Jakarta’s primary airport, Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, just after 2:30 pm local time, 59 people are presumed to have been onboard. Operated by a 26-year-old Boeing 737-524, registered PK-CLC, the aircraft began a right-hand turn to the north and climbed to an altitude of 10,000 feet before suffering a drop in altitude recorded with severe negative vertical speeds, according to FlightRadar24. The tracking website lost signal of the aircraft four minutes after departure.
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
Indonesia’s transport ministry confirms a search and rescue operation is now underway.
The aircraft involved was built in 1994 and first operated for Continental Air Lines as N27610. It was transferred to United Airlines as part of the merger, keeping its registration, in 2010. Sriwijaya Air then took ownership in 2012 as United looked to remove older aircraft to make way for new deliveries.
Sriwijaya Air was founded in 2003 and is based out of Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. It operates to 25 destinations mainly across Indonesia, but with some international flights to neighboring countries.
Its fleet is all Boeing, comprising of six 737-500, 11 737-800 and two 737-900ER aircraft. Out of the three variants, only the -500 aircraft come with a business class cabin, with the rest of the fleet in an all-economy configuration.
This page will be updated as more factual information is available.
Jack is a keen aviation enthusiast from the United Kingdom. He has been flying since the age of 13 and today operates in the airline industry