Commercial plane with 62 people disappears in Indonesia

Jakarta, Indonesia – A Sriwijaya Air plane with 62 people on board lost contact with air traffic controllers after taking off from the Indonesian capital on Saturday on a domestic flight, authorities have reported.

Ministry of Transport spokesman Adita Irawati said the Boeing 737-500 plane took off from Jakarta at around 1:56 pm (local time) and lost contact with the control tower at 2 p.m. : 40 pm

An airline statement indicates the plane was on a 90-minute flight from Jakarta to Pontianak, the capital of East Kalimantan province on the island of Borneo.

Before taking off, the plane boarded 56 passengers and six crew members.

Irawati indicated that a search and rescue operation had already begun in coordination with the National Search and Rescue Agency and the National Transportation Security Committee.

An airplane on this route would be most of the way flying over the Java Sea to the Indian Ocean.

There were no signs of the plane as night fell.

Indonesia, the largest archipelago country in the world, with a population of 260 million people, has been hit by a plague of land, sea and air transport accidents due to over capacity boats, deteriorated infrastructure and poor safety standards applied.