The plane of Indonesia’s Sriwijaya Air that crashed earlier on Saturday near Jakarta had sent no emergency signals, Bambang Suryo Aji, the deputy head for operations and preparedness of the Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas), said.
"We need to cross-check to determine why it doesn't transmit a signal," Aji said, as quoted by the state-run Antara news agency.
According to the official, the agency also looked into data of the Australia-owned satellite system.
"Australia also does not get the signal. So Basarnas is still trying to find out why the ELT [emergency location transmitters] does not transmit a signal," Aji said.
According to Antara, Indonesian Transport Minister Budi Karya Sumadi told a virtual press conference that a total of 62 people, including the plane's crew staff, were on board the Boeing 737-500, when the plane took off from the country's capital. Along with that, the Detik news outlet earlier reported, citing Sumadi, that there were 65 persons, including 53 passengers and 12 crew members.
Sumadi confirmed that the crash site was near the island of Laki, part of the island chain dotting the north of Java.
Jakarta airport controllers lost contact with the plane at 14:40 local time (07:40 GMT) minutes after it had taken off. According to the Flightradar24 air service, the plane lost more than 10,000 feet of altitude in less than 60 seconds and four minutes after the departure from Jakarta.
Boeing’s spokesperson Dana Salloum told Sputnik that the company was monitoring the events around the Sriwijaya Air plane crash and working to gather more information on the incident.
