A Lion Air flight between Jakarta and an island off Sumatra has crashed, Indonesian search and rescue officials have said.
A search and rescue effort has been launched after the passenger jet lost contact 13 minutes after takeoff on Monday morning.
Debris including bags, mangled mobile phones and what appear to be pieces of aircraft have been found near where the plane is believed to have sunk, in waters 30 to 40 metres deep.
The Boeing 737-800 left the Indonesian capital at 6.20am and was headed north to arrive in Pangkal Pinang, on the island of Bangka, at around 7.20am.
An official from Indonesia’s transport ministry has said there were 188 people on board, including crew.
The crew of a tug boat nearby told authorities they saw a plane falling from the sky – reports authorities in Jakarta’s eastern district, closest to the crash site, are working to verify.
“We can confirm that one of our flights has lost contact, its position cannot be ascertained yet,” Lion Air spokesperson Danang Mandala Prihantoro said.
Yusuf Latif, a spokesperson for the search and rescue agency said “it has been confirmed that it has crashed.”
Flight Radar said it was processing detailed information transmitted by the aircraft and that “preliminary data show an increase in speed and decrease in altitude at last transmission”.
The flight tracking service reported that the plane, powered by two CFM LEAP-1B engines, had been delivered to Lion Air in August this year.
The accident is the first involving the Boeing 737 MAX model, which are more fuel-efficient versions of the manufacturer’s single-aisle passenger jet. Lion Air subsidiary Malindo Air received the first delivery of the model in 2017.
Lion air said in a statement that the plane was airworthy, adding that the pilots on board had a total of 11,000 hours flying time between them.
Boeing tweeted it was “aware of reports of an airplane accident and is closely monitoring the situation”.
Low-cost carrier Lion Air began operating in 2000 and now operates 183 routes within Indonesia and surrounding countries including Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and China.
It is one of many new carriers in Indonesia, an island nation that relies heavily on air travel but has attracted a reputation for poor regulation.
Weather around Jakarta was reported to be cloudy this morning, with a rising chance of rain throughout the day.