Transport
Indonesian 737 jet crashes with 62 on board shortly after take off from Jakarta

A Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737 jet in Indonesia, with 62 people on board, has crashed shortly after take off from Jakarta. The flight had taken off from Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport and was passing through 11,000 feet altitude when it lost contact. The Boeing 737-500, registered PK CLC, was a 26 years old aircraft.
The head of Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee says Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 from Jakarta to Pontianak, on the Indonesian section of Borneo, lost contact with traffic controllers at 2:40 yesterday afternoon.
Indonesia’s national search and rescue agency announced that the 737-500 jetliner was believed to have crashed between the islands of Laki and Lancang, in the Thousand Islands chain, northwest of the capital, Jakarta.
3 fishermen, fishing off Lancang Island, told investigators they heard an explosion and “experienced a sudden large wave” around the time the plane lost contact with local air traffic control. One of the fishermen described the sound as “a bomb on the water.” It was raining at the time and heavily overcast.
The fishermen say they smelled fuel and spotted debris but didn’t see a plane crash into the sea. They returned to shore to report what they experienced to police.
The missing plane was carrying 50 passengers, 43 adults and 7 children, plus 12 crew.
Authorities are yet to report on the recovery of any bodies or remains during the search for the missing jet. A total of 28 ships, 5 helicopters and 2 search & rescue aircraft are taking part in the search. The Indonesian Navy has also deployed 5 warships and diving specialists to assist with the search efforts.
An emergency evacuation slide, reportedly from a Boeing 737, has already been recovered at sea in the search area where the crash was thought to have happened. The area between Laki and Lancang islands, is about 32 kilometres north from Jakarta.
Rescuers reported heavy rain and high winds in the search area. There have also been reports on the ground that people have found debris around Lancang Island. There is no current confirmation if the debris is associated with the missing plane.
Air traffic controllers say the plane dropped 10,000 feet in less than a minute before vanishing off their radars… that same information is confirmed on the global flight tracking service Flightradar24. The incident happened between 4-5 minutes after takeoff, according to the data.
Sriwijaya Airlines CEO Jefferson Irwin Jauwena has already claimed that the plane was in “good condition before it took off”.
“Of course we are very concerned about what happened to us with SJ 182. We hope that your prayers can help the search process run smoothly. We hope all is well.”
Boeing, still reeling 2 years after two Boeing 737 Max aircraft crashed – one very near this current incident north of Jakarta’s international airport and the other in Ethiopia – said…
“Our thoughts are with the crew, passengers, and their families. We are in contact with our airline customer and stand ready to support them during this difficult time.”
Sriwijaya Air is a budget carrier and Indonesia’s third largest airline, carrying more than 950,000 passengers per month. The airline is based at its Jakarta hub and flies to 53 destinations within Indonesia plus 3 regional destinations.
In 2014, Indonesian AirAsia Flight 8501 claimed the lives of all 162 people on board after also crashing into the Java Sea, while flying from Surabaya to Singapore. And in 2013 a Lion Air was involved in 2 accidents. A Boeing 737 missed the runway on landing and crashed into the sea near Bali, forcing passengers to swim or wade to safety, while another Boeing 737 collided with a cow while touching down at Jalaluddin Airport in Gorontalo on the island of Sulawesi.
SOURCE: CNN | Reuters
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Indonesia
UPDATE: At least 34 dead and 600 injured after Indonesia earthquake

UPDATE: At least 34 people were killed after a 6.2 magnitude earthquake shook Indonesia’s Sulawesi island just after midnight today. As of this evening, reports say more than 600 people were injured during the earthquake which caused buildings to collapse and residents to flee their homes in the dark.
Original story below…
Indonesian island Sulawesi was shook by a 6.2 magnitude earthquake shortly after midnight today, toppling over buildings and injuring hundreds. Reports are continuously being updated as rescuers search through rubble. As of early this afternoon, at least 10 people were killed.
Thousands evacuated their homes in West Sulawesi. The earthquake impacted the coastal city Majene where at least 3 people died and neighbouring Mamuju where at least 7 people died. Several buildings, including hotels, were severely damaged and many homes were flattened. A hospital was partially damaged and reports say more than a dozen patients and staff were trapped under the rubble. Others are trapped in rubble after their homes collapsed. A rescuer says “We are racing against time to rescue them.”
Videos have been released of those crying for help. A father crying, calling out for help to save his children under their home’s wreckage. In another, a girl’s voice cried out from a collapsed home, saying “please help me, it hurts.” The video was released by the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. Rescuers say they need an excavator to say the girl and other people who are trapped under the collapsed buildings.
The area was first hit by a 5.9 magnitude undersea quake on Thursday. It damaged several buildings, but no deaths were reported.
Since the most recent earthquake is inland, the district’s disaster agency chief says it does not have the potential to cause a tsunami, but people in coastal areas ran to higher ground just to be safe.
The vast archipelago is located on the “Ring of Fire” of volcanoes and fault lines, prone to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.
SOURCE: Associated Press
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Indonesia
Indonesia rolls out Covid-19 vaccinations, president gets first dose

Indonesia is rolling out its mass Covid-19 vaccination campaign with President Joko Widodo as the first in the country to get jabbed with China’s Sinovac Biotech vaccine.
Indonesia approved the vaccine for emergency use earlier this week. It’s the first large-scale use of the Sinovac vaccine outside of China. Thailand has also made an agreement to purchase the 2 million doses of China’s Sinovac BioTech shots. The first batch of 200,000 doses is expected to arrive in Thailand next month.
The Thai company Siam Bioscience is producing AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, which was developed in partnership with Oxford University. That vaccine is set to be available to the Thai public in May.
After Indonesia’s president was vaccinated, top military, police and medical officials in the country were injected with the vaccine. The secretary of the Indonesian Ulema Council were also vaccinated. The council recently agreed that the vaccine is halal, permissible for Muslims.
Mass vaccination in Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populated country with 181.5 million people, will be rolled out over the next few months. Vaccines will be free for all Indonesian citizens. Health care workers, civil servants and those at risk of infection are first priority.
To vaccinate two-thirds of the population with the 2-shot vaccine, the country’s health minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin says around 427 million doses are needed.
“This vaccine is given to achieve herd immunity. All 70% of the world’s people must be vaccinated for that to be achieved. The participation of all Indonesians will greatly determine the success of this program.”
SOURCE: Associated Press
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Indonesia
Black box data located from the crashed Boeing 737 in Jakarta

The black boxes from a passenger plane which crashed in the sea soon after take-off from Jakarta on Saturday have been located. The black box recorders record conversations in the cockpit as well as an array of data from the plane’s control systems. Indonesian ships has been searching the crash site with navy divers hoping to retrieve the two flight recorders over the next 24 hours.
The Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500 jet was carrying 62 people when it vanished from radar on its journey to Borneo.
(The crash of the Boeing 737-500 model is likely unrelated to the current controversies surrounding the later Boeing 737 Max model)
Soerjanto Tjahjono, head of Indonesia’s transport safety, announced late yesterday that they’d located the position of the two black boxes.
“Divers will start looking for them now and hopefully it won’t be long before we get them.”
Family members gathered at the victim identification centre in Jakarta and at a crisis centre in Pontianak, the scheduled destination for the plane, waiting for news of their family and friends.
The seas north of the Jakarta airport are relatively shallow and the weather has improved since the rescue operations started, making recovery easier. Rescue supervisors have admitted it had become a recovery mission, not a search and rescue.
Police are asking families of the victims to provide DNA samples and dental records to assist with the identification process of remains recovered already from the crash site.
The Sriwijaya Air passenger took off from Jakarta airport just after 2.30 in the afternoon on Saturday.
When passing through 11,000 feet the plane lost contact with air traffic controllers. It was flying to Pontianak, in West Kalimantan province in the west of the island of Borneo. The flight should have taken 90 minutes. There was no distress signal sent by the flight crew. The plane dropped 10,000 feet in less than a minute indicating a catastrophic failure of the flight systems or break up of the plane.
The plane was carrying 50 passengers, including 7 children and 3 babies, plus 12 crew. Everyone on board was Indonesian.
SOURCE: Reuters | CNN
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