(Image:AP News)
Last Saturday, 9th jan, Boeing 737-500 was en route to Pontianak in West Kalimantan province. The plane, named the Sriwijaya Air 737 was only in air for a total of four short minutes before disappearing from radar screens. The plane was 27 years old.
There were 62 passengers on board the domestic flight, including 12 members of the flight crew. All those on the flight were also Indonesian.
The Indonesian navy was reportedly deployed for search and rescue efforts. Most attention on the search will be along the Thousand Islands Chain which includes the regions between the islands of Laki and Lancang. The crash site was expected to be around 20km North of the capital Jakarta, close to another Indonesian crash site in October 2018.
The Indonesian Navy, Police, Coast Guard and Transportation Ministry has dispatched a total of 28 ships, five helicopters and 2 airplanes in hopes of finding any traces of the plane. On Saturday, Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) reported finding several pieces of debris believed to be from the missing plane but bad weather and poor visibility had halted the search. The next day, Indonesia’s military divers spotted wrecked parts of a Boeing 737-500 at a depth of 23m in the Java Sea.
Currently, distraught relatives of the crash victims await anxiously for updates on the crash where several bodies have already been found. Indonesian police urges families to come forward to identify the victims and their belongings. Let’s hope that the search is a successful one and the families will be reunited with each other once again.