“We believe this is the scene of the accident,” military chief Hadi Tjahjanto said during a televised briefing. Items found 23 meters (75 feet) underwater include life jackets and parts of the plane that bear his registration number, he said.

Confirmation that the plane had crashed came about 20 hours after it went missing after leaving the capital Jakarta, and Indonesian President Joko Widodo called for maximum effort to search and rescue the victims.

Although the cause has not been determined, the crash once again pushed the country’s aviation industry into crisis mode. Indonesia has seen a series of plane crashes over the past decade, including the Lion Air 610 flight disaster that killed 189 people in 2018, the first of two 737 Max crashes that led to a global grounding. In December 2014, an AirAsia Group Bhd. Dived in the Java Sea with 162 people on board.

The plane Sriwijaya Air was flying is a much older 737-500 model than the 737 Max plane.

Weather conditions have contributed to several of the past accidents. Heavy rains in Jakarta delayed the takeoff of flight SJ182 by 90 minutes to Pontianak on the island of Borneo on Saturday.

It finally took off at 2:36 pm local time, reaching 1,700 feet a minute later, where it was cleared by Jakarta air traffic controllers to climb to 29,000 feet, according to Transport Minister Budi Karya Sumadi. Four minutes after takeoff, the controllers noticed that the aircraft was not on its assigned path. He radioed the crew and within seconds the plane was off radar, he said.

Tracking data from Flightradar24 showed the aircraft stabilized at an altitude of about 10,000 to 11,000 feet 3 minutes after takeoff, before descending rapidly to the water in just 14 seconds. This meant it was dropping to over 40,000 feet per minute, a rate far above routine operations.

According to aviation analyst Gerry Soejatman, preliminary readings of flight data transmitted by the aircraft via the automatic-broadcast dependent surveillance system appear to show “possible disorientation” on the part of the pilots.

“Of course, we have to wait for the final report of the investigation to know the real cause of the incident, but the preliminary data seems to indicate a possible disorientation in the cockpit, of which the bad weather is a factor here”, he said. he declares.

Without access to the aircraft’s black box flight recorders, it’s impossible to say what may have triggered the sudden dive, said Jeffrey Guzzetti, the former chief of accident investigations at the US Federal Aviation Administration. United. “Right now, given the amount of scarce information, this flight track could adapt to many scenarios, such as flight crew confusion, instrumentation issues, mechanical breakdowns catastrophic or even an intentional act, ”he said.

Indonesia deployed divers, warships, sonar ships and planes on Sunday. Of the 62 people, 50 were passengers, including seven children and three infants, and there were two pilots, four cabin crew and six off-duty crew, local media reported. There were no foreign nationals on board.

Boeing is “monitoring the situation closely,” spokeswoman Zoe Leong said in a statement. “We are working to collect more information.” Sriwijaya Air said it will work with relevant authorities in the evacuation and investigation efforts.

The Model 737-500 first flew in 1989 and, according to the tracking website Planespotters.net, this aircraft first flew in May 1994.

“It’s not even the model before the Max, it’s been in service for 30 years, so it’s unlikely to be a design flaw,” said Richard Aboulafia, aviation analyst at Teal Group. Corp. “Thousands of these planes were built and production ended over 20 years ago, so something would have been discovered by now.

The crash comes as the aviation industry is reeling from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, which has brought air travel to its knees. Covid-19 has torn apart in a tumultuous and unprecedented way, leaving carriers in a deep hole, along with a constellation of aerospace manufacturers, airports and rental companies. The International Air Transport Association said last week that global passenger demand fell significantly in November, down 70% from the same period of 2019, measured in revenue passenger-kilometers.

“Although we do not know anything else about the cause of this crash, what concerns me most are the serious concerns regarding Indonesian aviation safety standards that have been identified by the Aviation Safety Agency of the United Kingdom. ‘European Union and others years ago,’ Aboulafia said. “I am not entirely sure that the correct procedures have been put in place.”

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has appointed a lead investigator to help with the investigation, but is awaiting more information before determining whether it will send a team, it said in an emailed statement. . Under a United Nations treaty, the NTSB along with technical experts from Boeing and possibly manufacturers of other components would participate in the probe because the jet was built in the United States.

Indonesia’s Transportation Safety Committee has started its investigation, including retrieving air traffic communications and radar information as well as questioning officials on duty, according to senior investigator Nurcahyo Utomo. The committee is working with the government to allow foreign investigators to enter the country despite the current travel ban, he said.

Indonesia, which had one of the fastest growing airline industries in the world before Covid, has an uneven safety record when it comes to air accidents. Its bad aviation history saw the country’s carriers banned from the European Union in 2007 and it wasn’t until June 2018 that the total ban was lifted. In 1997, Garuda Indonesia flight 152 crashed on approach to an airport in Medan in North Sumatra, killing 234. AirAsia flight 8501 which crashed in late 2014 was en route to Singapore from Surabaya.

On October 29, 2018, the Lion Air-flown Boeing 737 Max plunged into the Java Sea 13 minutes after take-off, killing all 189 passengers and crew. It was Indonesia’s second deadliest plane crash.

The coronavirus pandemic has complicated aviation to the extent that pilots do not have enough opportunities to fly because airlines have ground planes and cut back on operations due to lower demand. On September 15, an Indonesian flight carrying 307 passengers and 11 crew to the northern city of Medan momentarily deviated from the runway after landing, triggering an investigation by the transport safety regulator. . He revealed that the pilot had flown less than three hours in the previous 90 days. The first officer hadn’t flown at all since February 1.

“This concern about the lack of flight hours among the pilots may have materialized here,” said Soejatman. “The domestic market for Indonesian airlines is rebounding after the Covid hiatus, which may have put considerable strain on the crew. Expect that with all the personal conditions that these people might have because of the pay cut and everything, it’s a tough time for the industry. “

Saturday’s crash also follows a tumultuous time for Boeing, which saw its 737 Max cleared for flight again by the United States Federal Aviation Administration, ending the longest airliner grounding in the history of the United States. The Brazilian Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA was the first airline to resume regular flights using the jet, from December 9 on domestic routes from Sao Paulo. American Airlines Group Inc. has since also reintroduced the Max on Miami-New York flights.

Earlier this month, Boeing struck a $ 2.5 billion deal with the Justice Department to settle a criminal charge that it defrauded the U.S. government by withholding information about the 737 Max, ending a two-year investigation that devastated the company’s reputation for its engineering prowess.

Sriwijaya Air was established in November 2003. Its fleet consists of the Boeing 737 family and ATR 72-600 turboprop engines. While the company primarily serves national routes, it flies internationally to Penang, Malaysia and Dili, Timor-Leste. National carrier PT Garuda Indonesia briefly resumed operation of Sriwijaya and its NAM Air unit in 2018 to accelerate Sriwijaya’s debt restructuring, including the clearance of contributions to the Garuda unit.

The Boeing aircraft in question had been operated by Sriwijaya Air since 2012, according to fleet data on Planespotters.net, and was previously used by Continental Air Lines and United Airlines Holdings Inc.