Indonesian plane plunges into waters near Jakarta, debris spotted

A Lion Air Boeing 737 passenger plane came down crashing minutes after taking off from Jakarta on Monday, said Indonesian officials.

"It has been confirmed that it has crashed," Yusuf Latif, a spokesman for the national search and rescue agency told the media.

Flight JT610 lost contact with the ground 13 minutes after take-off, according to an official. The jet was a Boeing 737 MAX 8, which can carry up to 200 passengers, according to air tracking service Flightradar 24.

Flight JT-610 was on a scheduled flight from the Indonesian capital to Pangkal Pinang, the main city in the Bangka Belitung Islands.

The Lion Air flight was going to the city of Pangkal Pinang off the island of Sumatra. The plane lost contact with the air-traffic controller at 6:33 am, 13 minutes after taking off, the airport authorities said.

It was not immediately clear how many people were on board.

It was not immediately clear how many people were on board the plane, a Lion Air official earlier told the BBC, and added that the company did not yet know what had happened to the plane.

The aircraft was reported to be a Boeing 737 MAX 8, a model only in use since 2016.

Reports received at Tanjung Priok port in North Jakarta indicated the remains of the plane had been spotted.

Indonesia’s disaster agency spokesman posted video of some debris on Twitter.

With IANS inputs