On Sunday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo offered his condolences and urged people to pray for the accident victims.
"We will do everything possible to find and save the victims, and together, we pray that they can be found," he said at the Presidential Palace, according to Reuters. "On behalf of the Indonesian government and people, we would like to express our condolences for what happened
The missing plane was carrying 50 passengers - 43 adults and 7 children - as well as 12 crew members, according to Indonesia's Transport Minister Budi Karya Sumadi. He expressed his condolences for those who died in the incident.
Family members have gathered at the victim identification center in Jakarta, awaiting news of their loved ones.
A family of five is missing and feared dead, according to a family aunt who spoke to CNN. The family released a statement saying that the father, 26-year-old Rizki Wahyudi who worked for the Indonesian Forestry Commission, his 26-year-old wife Indah Halimah Putri, their 7-month-old son, as well as his mother and cousin, were on the flight. that crashed.
The married couple Muhammad Nur Kholifatul Amin and his wife Agus Minarni were also on board the crashed flight, according to the brother of one of the victims who spoke to CNN.
Fishermen heard an explosion
Three Lancang Island fishermen told CNN they heard an explosion and experienced a sudden large wave around the time the plane disappeared.
«I heard a very loud explosion. I thought it was a bomb or a big thunder. Then we saw the big wave, about 2 meters high, hitting our boat, ”said Hendrik Mulyadi.
Hendrik's colleague Solihin described the sound as "a bomb in water." They said that at that time it was dark and raining.
The men said they did not see a plane crash into the sea, but they smelled fuel and detected debris. They further noted that they returned to shore to report what they experienced to the police.
The plane, registered PK CLC, was a 26-year-old Boeing 737-500, according to Flightradar24. Sriwijaya Airlines CEO Jefferson Irwin Jauwena said the plane was in good condition before taking off.
In a statement, Boeing said: “Our thoughts are with the crew, passengers and their families. We are in contact with the customer of our airline and we are ready to support them during this difficult time.
Sriwijaya Air, a low-cost carrier and Indonesia's third-largest airline, carries more than 950,000 passengers per month from its central Jakarta to 53 destinations within Indonesia and three regional countries, according to the company's website.
In June 2018, it was removed from the European Union's list of banned airlines, 11 years after its inclusion on that list.
A history of accidents
In October 2018, Lion Air Flight 610 crashed into the Java Sea in Indonesia after taking off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. The Boeing 737 Max 8 plane was scheduled to make a one-hour trip to Pangkal Pinang on Bangka Island.
Inadequate design and certification of the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft, along with an overwhelmed flight crew struggling with a malfunctioning system but were unable to properly identify, led to the accident, according to an October 2019 report by Indonesian authorities. .
In 2014, Indonesia's AirAsia Flight 8501 claimed the lives of all 162 on board after crashing into the Java Sea, while flying from Surabaya to Singapore.
And the year before, Lion Air was involved in two accidents. A Boeing 737 lost 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 landing at Jalaluddin Airport in Gorontalo on the island of Sulawesi.
In 2007, the European Union banned all 51 Indonesian airlines from its airspace after a Garuda Indonesia plane with 140 people on board left the Yogyakarta runway in March and exploded, killing 21 people on board.
Standards have since improved, with all Indonesian airlines removed from that blacklist in June 2018.
Indonesia, an archipelago nation of more than 13,000 islands, has seen a boom in domestic aviation in recent years, with passenger traffic tripling between 2005 and 2017, according to Australian consultancy CAPA-Center for Aviation.
The country of 270 million people relies heavily on air travel to travel between the islands of the archipelago, which stretches for more than 4,800 kilometers - roughly the same distance between London and New York.
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