Rescuers in inflatable boats have retrieved human remains, pieces of aircraft and personal belongings after a jet operated by an Indonesian budget airline crashed minutes after takeoff, killing all 189 people on board.
Distraught family members are struggling to comprehend the sudden loss of loved ones in the crash of the two-month-old Lion Air plane with experienced pilots in fine weather.
They gathered at crisis centres set up by the authorities at airports, hoping desperately for a miracle.
But a top search official said no survivors were expected.
Heartbreaking photos show police officers carrying body bags containing human remains as they returned to land from the boats searching the ocean for survivors.
At Tanjung Priok Harbour, rescue team members arranging the items gathered from the crash site, including personal belongings of the people who had been on board.
The disaster is a setback for Indonesia's airline industry, which just emerged from decade-long bans by the European Union and the US over safety concerns.
President Joko Widodo has ordered an investigation and urged Indonesians to "keep on praying".
Lion Air flight JT610, an almost new Boeing 737 MAX 8, had requested permission to turn back just minutes after take-off yesterday.
The airline said it had lost contact with the plane, which was scheduled to make the estimated 70-minute journey from the capital to Pangkal Pinang, a city on an island off the coast of Sumatra.
Lion Air flight JT610: What we know so far
- Flight JT610, with up to 189 passengers including crew on board, crashed in the sea off Indonesia at 6.30am local time. The plane was flying from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang, Indonesia.
- Human remains have been found along with debris from the plane and personal belongings owned by passengers.
- The plane, which had only been flying since August, requested to turn back before contact was lost.
The crash of the Boeing 737 Max 8 is the latest in a series of tragedies that have struck Indonesia this year, including earthquakes and a tsunami that killed several thousand people.
An air transport official, Novie Riyanto, said the flight was cleared to return to Jakarta after the pilot made a "return to base" request two to three minutes after taking off. It plunged into the sea about 10 minutes later. Weather conditions were normal but the plane, which Lion Air received in August, had experienced an unspecified technical issue on its previous flight.
Relatives and friends wept, prayed and hugged each other as they waited at Jakarta's airport and at Pangkal Pinang's airport on Bangka island off Sumatra where the flight was headed. Some including Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani headed to the search and rescue agency's headquarters in Jakarta for information. About 20 ministry staff were on the flight.
Latief Nurbana said he and his wife Yeti Eka Sumiati stayed up late Sunday talking to their 24-year-old son Lutfi Nuramdani, squeezing every moment they could from his weekend visit to Jakarta to catch up on his life in Pangkal Pinang.
Nurbana said they talked until falling asleep and Sumiati woke up early to take their son, a post office worker, to the airport.
"Last night, we were chatting together about his wife who is now seven months' pregnant, his plans and his dreams with his own small family until we fell asleep," he said as his wife wept and clung to him.
"Now he's gone. We can't believe that he left us this way, we can't believe that his plane crashed. That's something we only see on TV news, now it happened to my son," Nurbana said. "We want to see his body, his face, his remains."
More than 300 people including soldiers, police and fishermen are involved in the grim search, retrieving aircraft debris and personal items such as a crumpled cellphone, ID cards and carry-on bags from the seas northeast of Jakarta.
Search and Rescue Agency chief Muhammad Syaugi said he was certain it would not take long to locate the hull of the aircraft and its black box due to the relatively shallow 25 to 30 metre depths of the waters it plunged into. Three specialised search ships, including one from Singapore, were headed to the crash location.
The jet, on a 1-hour flight, was carrying 181 passengers, including one child and two babies, and eight crew members.
Lion Air said there were two foreigners on the plane: one of the pilots, Indian national Bhavye Suneja, and an Italian citizen.
Friends and relatives gathered at the pilot's family home in New Delhi to comfort his immediate family.
"His father is stunned and not in a condition to talk or do anything. Sister and mother have not come out. They are distressed," said family friend Anil Gupta.
LION AIR: IN PROFILE
- Founded in 1999, Lion Air is Indonesia's biggest budget carrier and operates more than 650 daily flights across domestic and international routes.
- Lion Air has a fleet of 115 planes, primarily Boeing 737s of varying age. At the 2017 Paris Air Show the carrier placed an $8.7bn order for 50 737 Max 10 passenger jets, making the airline Boeing's second largest customer.
- The airline has had a chequered safety record, with various plane crashes. In 2013, one of its Boeing 737-800 jets missed the runway while landing on the resort island of Bali, crashing into the sea without causing any fatalities among the 108 people on board.
© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2018
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