JAKARTA, Jan 11 Indonesian divers today will try to retrieve the data recorders of a Sriwijaya Air jet that plunged into the sea two days ago with 62 people on board minutes after take-off from Jakarta’s main airport. The SJ 182 was headed on a domestic flight to Pontianak on Borneo island,.
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While it was not clear what caused the plane to plummet so quickly after takeoff, it does appear the jet broke apart when it hit the sea and likely not in mid-air, Indonesia s National Transportation Safety Committee Chairman told
The plane that crashed had been flown earlier during the same day, the airline s president director told the AP. The Boeing 737-500 was nearly 27 years old, and several generations older than the 737 Max that crashed in Indonesia in 2018, setting off a nearly two-year global grounding of the jets.
The crash shines a spotlight on Indonesia s spotty aviation record, one of the worst in Asia, The Associated Press noted. In the past, crashes have been attributed to everything from inadequate maintenance of aircraft and poor pilot training to air traffic control issues.