Indonesia says Lion Air passenger flight from Jakarta to Sumatra has crashed
JAKARTA:(Net News/ Media 92 News) A Lion Air flight going from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang off the island of Sumatra has crashed, an Indonesian official said Monday morning, adding that a search and rescue operation had been commenced.
“It’s true that Lion Air JT 610 has lost contact,” AirNav Indonesia spokesperson Yohanes Harry Douglas said in a statement.
“We have forwarded the information to search and rescue teams.”
“It has been confirmed that it has crashed,” Yusuf Latif, a spokesperson for the search and rescue agency, said by text message when asked about the fate of the Lion Air airplane.
It is believed that the flight — JT 610 — took off from Jakarta at 6:10 AM and was slated to land in Pangkal Pinang, the Bangka Belitung Islands’ main city, off the island of Sumatra, at 7:20 AM.
It, however, reportedly took off at 6:20 AM but contact was lost 13 minutes later, at 6:33 AM, according to a report available with the website Tribunsumsel.com.
This was later confirmed by Latif, who said the plane lost contact 13 minutes after takeoff. The jet was a Boeing 737 MAX 8, according to air tracking service Flightradar 24.
According to TRT, Lion Air Group chief executive Edward Sirait said information on the missing plane was being sought and no further details could be given at this moment.
“We cannot give any comment at this moment. … We are trying to collect all the information and data,” Sirait said.
It was not immediately clear how many people were on board.
Reportedly, the last known coordinates of the flight were 5°49.727 south, 107°07.460 east.