Boeing 737: Indonesian passenger plane missing after ‘falling 10,000ft’
A Boeing 737 passenger plane with an estimated 62 people on board has disappeared after taking off from Jakarta.
According to reports, the Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737 lost contact on its route from the Indonesian capital to Pontianak on the island of Borneo.
Flight tracking website Flightradar24 said the aircraft, which set off at 2.37pm local time (7.37am GMT) had dropped more than 10,000ft in altitude in less than a minute.
The 452-mile flight is expected to take one hour and 35 minutes.
Indonesian budget airline Sriwijaya Air said it was in the process of collecting more information about the flight.
The BBC reported that the plan is a 26-year-old Boeing 737-500, not a 737 Max – the model involved in two crashes in recent years.
In October 2018, a Lion Air 737 Max aircraft crashed shortly after taking off from Jakarta, killing 189 people.
Five months later in March last year, an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max crashed minutes after taking off from Addis Ababa, resulting in 157 deaths.
Morning Wire has contacted Boeing for comment.