The Sriwijaya Air jet was carrying 62 people when it disappeared from radar four minutes into its journey to Pontianak in West Kalimantan province.

On Sunday, signals thought to be from the jet’s flight recorder were traced.

More than 10 ships have now been deployed to the site with navy divers.

“We have detected signals in two points, this could be the black box,” the chief of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, Bagus Puruhito, said.

Investigators are also analysing items they believe to be wreckage from the aircraft, including a wheel and what they say could be part of the plane’s fuselage.

A spokesman for the Jakarta police, Yusri Yunus, said two bags had been received from the search and rescue agency.

“The first bag contained passengers’ properties, another bag contained body parts,” he told reporters, adding: “We are still identifying these findings.”

Search and rescue efforts were suspended overnight but resumed early on Sunday.

Four planes have also been deployed to help with the search.

The missing aircraft is not a 737 Max, the Boeing model that was grounded from March 2019 until last December following two deadly crashes.

What happened to the aircraft?

The Sriwijaya Air passenger plane departed Jakarta airport at 14:36 local time (07:36 GMT) on Saturday.

Minutes later, at 14:40, the last contact with the plane was recorded, with the call sign SJY182, according to the transport ministry.

The usual flight time to Pontianak, in the west of the island of Borneo, is 90 minutes.

The aircraft did not send a distress signal, according to the head of national search and rescue agency Air Marshal Bagus Puruhito.

It is thought to have dropped more than 3,000m (10,000ft) in less than a minute, according to flight tracking website Flightradar24.com.

Witnesses said they had seen and heard at least one explosion.

Fisherman Solihin, who goes by one name, told the BBC Indonesian service he had witnessed a crash and his captain decided to return to land.

“The plane fell like lightning into the sea and exploded in the water,” he said. “It was pretty close to us, the shards of a kind of plywood almost hit my ship.”

A number of residents of an island near where the plane disappeared told the BBC they had found objects they thought were from the plane.

Who was on board the flight?

There were thought to be 50 passengers – including seven children and three babies – and 12 crew on board, though the plane has a capacity of 130.

Everyone on board was Indonesian, officials say.

Relatives of the passengers have been waiting anxiously at the airport in Pontianak, as well as at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.

“I have four family members on the flight – my wife and my three children,” Yaman Zai told reporters through tears.

“[My wife] sent me a picture of the baby today… How could my heart not be torn into pieces?”

What do we know about the plane?

According to registration details, the plane was a 26-year-old Boeing 737-500.

It was in good condition, Sriwijaya Air chief executive Jefferson Irwin Jauwena told reporters.

Take-off had been delayed for 30 minutes due to heavy rain, he said.

Sriwijaya Air, founded in 2003, is a local budget airline which flies to Indonesian and other South-East Asian destinations.

The plane went missing about 20km (12 miles) north of the capital Jakarta, not far from where another flight crashed in October 2018.

A total of 189 died when an Indonesian Lion Air flight plunged into the sea about 12 minutes after take-off from the city.

That disaster was blamed on a series of failures in the plane’s design, but also faults by the airline and the pilots.

It was one of two crashes that led regulators to pull the Boeing 737 Max from service.

The model resumed passenger flights in December after a systems overhaul.

The BBC’s Jerome Wirawan in Jakarta says the latest events will bring up difficult questions and emotions in Indonesia, whose airline industry has faced intense scrutiny since the Lion Air crash.

Source: BBC

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Boeing, which builds the 737 south of Seattle, said it would not lay off any of the roughly 12,000 employees there during the production freeze, though the move could have repercussions across its global supply chain and the U.S. economy.

The decision at a two-day board meeting came after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) refused to approve the jet’s return to service before 2020 and delivered what was seen as a public rebuff to Boeing’s hopes of moving faster.

The 737 MAX has been grounded since March after two crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed 346 people within five months, costing the plane manufacturer more than $9 billion so far.

The decision to halt production will have little immediate impact on airlines that have already seen deliveries halted, forcing many to cancel flights or lease older replacements.

But it marks a deepening of a crisis that has already seen Boeing’s fastest-selling jet grounded worldwide, its safety record scrutinized, customers pressing for compensation and its cornerstone relationship with the FAA placed under strain.

It also threatens to hit U.S. economy, with House representative Rick Larsen calling Boeing’s decision “a body blow to its workers and the region’s economy.”

“The only saving grace is the Boeing leadership has promised not to lay off any workers. I am ready to work with Boeing workers to ensure … they will have access to the necessary resources in the event of a prolonged shutdown.”

Until now Boeing has continued to produce 737 MAX jets at a rate of 42 per month and purchase parts from suppliers at a rate of up to 52 units per month, even though deliveries are frozen until regulators approve the aircraft to fly commercially again.

Boeing did not say how long the shutdown might last, stressing this was up to the FAA.

Previous efforts to predict when the 737 MAX might return to service after software training changes had drawn a sharp response from the U.S. regulator.

The FAA said it would not comment on what it described as a Boeing business decision but would continue to work with global regulators to review proposed changes to the 737 MAX.

“Our first priority is safety, and we have set no timeframe for when the work will be completed,” the agency said.

Analysts said the shutdown was inevitable after Boeing was forced to abandon its end-year goal for returning to service.

“It is not a surprise that they don’t continue producing planes that don’t have a home,” said Adam Pilarski, senior vice president at Virginia-based consultancy AVITAS.

SHARES FALL

After holding out for months by keeping its factory lines running at optimum speed for a quick return, Boeing said it had decided to put emphasis on delivering some 400 planes that have been produced and stored, once the FAA gives the green light.

Such an emphasis would most quickly release much-needed cash for Boeing, but could cause other problems when production resumes, industry sources said.

Supply chains are fragile due to record demand and abrupt changes in speed often cause snags.

Boeing did not say what extra financial impact the 737 MAX shutdown would have ahead of annual results due in January.

A spokesman said it would continue production of a military derivative of the 737, the P-8 maritime surveillance jet.

Boeing’s shares closed down 4% on Monday and fell 1% after hours.

Shares in Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc, its biggest supplier, fell 2%.

Analysts highlighted General Electric Co, Safran and Senior Plc as other suppliers that could experience disruptions.

GE and Safran co-produce engines for the 737 MAX and unlike most suppliers are paid mostly once the airplanes are delivered to the airline buyer.

Airlines with 737 MAX jets and orders also face added uncertainty after already scaling back flying schedules and delaying growth plans.

Southwest Airlines, the largest 737 MAX customer, said last week it had reached a compensation agreement with Boeing for a portion of a projected $830 million hit to operating income in 2019 from the grounding.

Source:  Reuters

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The plane, according to a BBC report, crashed into the sea shortly after taking off from the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

Flight JT 610 was on a scheduled flight to Pangkal Pinang, the main town in the Bangka Belitung Islands, but lost contact with ground control a few minutes after take-off.

It is believed to have ended up underwater.

There cause of the crash is not yet known and there has been no word yet of any survivors.

The plane was a Boeing 737 MAX 8, a brand new type of aircraft.

“The plane crashed into water about 30m to 40m deep,” Search and Rescue Agency spokesman Yusuf Latif told AFP news agency.

“We’re still searching for the remains of the plane.”

Some materials believed to belong to passengers have been found in the water, including ID cards and driver’s licences.

“We don’t know yet whether there are any survivors,” the agency’s head, Muhmmad Syaugi, told reporters.

“We hope, we pray, but we cannot confirm.”

At an earlier news conference, officials said the plane had been carrying 178 adults, one infant and two babies, as well as two pilots and five cabin crew.

However, there are conflicting reports on the exact number of people on board.

The plane was due to arrive at Depati Amir airport in Pangkal Pinang an hour later but 13 minutes into the flight, authorities lost contact with it.

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