BANGKOK — Indonesia’s Transportation Ministry said on Saturday that it had lost contact with a passenger jet after it took off from the capital, Jakarta, and flew over the Java Sea. The ministry said that the last contact with the plane, Sriwijaya Air Flight 182, was made at 2:40 p.m. local time. The plane had 62 people aboard, according to an official from Sriwijaya Air, an Indonesian airline based in Jakarta. Four minutes after taking off amid heavy rain, the 26-year-old plane lost more than 10,000 feet of altitude in less than 60 seconds, according to Flightradar24, the flight-tracking service. The aviation sector in Indonesia, a developing country of thousands of islands, has long been plagued by trouble, contending with poor safety records and the rapid growth of budget airlines.

Source: International New York Times January 09, 2021 11:01 UTC