Indonesian divers spot parts of plane wreckage in Java Sea as rescuers find body parts, debris

Indonesia's military chief says divers have spotted parts of the wreckage of a Boeing 737-500 at a depth of 23 metres in the Java Sea, a day after the aircraft with 62 people onboard crashed.

"We received reports from the diver team that the visibility in the water is good and clear, allowing the discovery of some parts of the plane," Air Chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto said in a statement.

"We are sure that is the point where the plane crashed."

Earlier, officials said rescuers pulled body parts, pieces of clothing and scraps of metal from the Java Sea. "These pieces were found by the SAR team between Lancang Island and Laki Island," National Search and Rescue Agency Bagus Puruhito said in a statement.

More than 12 hours since Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 lost contact, little is known about what caused the Boeing plane to crash.

Fishermen in the area around Thousand Islands, a chain of islands north of Jakarta's coast, reported hearing an explosion around 2:30 p.m. local time Saturday.

"We heard something explode, we thought it was a bomb or a tsunami since after that we saw the big splash from the water," fisherman Solihin, who goes by one name, told The Associated Press by phone.

"It was raining heavily and the weather was so bad. So it is difficult to see around clearly. But we can see the splash and a big wave after the sounds. We were very shocked and directly saw the plane debris and the fuel around our boat."

Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said Flight SJ182 was delayed for an hour before it took off at 2:36 p.m. local time. It disappeared from radar four minutes later, after the pilot contacted air traffic control to ascend to an altitude of 8,839 metres, he said.

There were 62 people on board, including seven children and three babies.

Authorities established two crisis centres, one at airport and one at port. Families gathered to wait for news of loved ones.

On social media, people began circulating the flight manifest with photos and videos of those who were listed as passengers. One video shows a woman with her children waving goodbye while walking through the airport.

Plane was 'airworthy'

Sriwijaya Air President Director Jefferson Irwin Jauwena said the plane, which is 26 years old and previously used by airlines in the United States, was airworthy. He told reporters Saturday that the plane had previously flown to Pontianak and Pangkal Pinang city on the same day.

"Maintenance report said everything went well and airworthy," Jauwena told a news conference. He said the plane was delayed due to bad weather, not because of any damage.

Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago nation, with more than 260 million people, has been plagued by transportation accidents on land, sea and air because of overcrowding on ferries, aging infrastructure and poorly enforced safety standards.

In October 2018, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet operated by Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea just minutes after taking off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. The plane involved in Saturday's incident did not have the automated flight-control system that played a role in the Lion Air crash and another crash of a 737 MAX 8 jet in Ethiopia five months later, leading to the grounding of the MAX 8 for 20 months.

The Lion Air crash was Indonesia's worst airline disaster since 1997, when 234 people were killed on a Garuda airlines flight near Medan on Sumatra island. In December 2014, an AirAsia flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea, killing 162 people.

Sriwijaya Air has only had several minor incidents in the past, though a farmer was killed in 2008 when a landing plane went off runway due to a hydraulic issue.

The United States banned Indonesian carriers from operating in the country in 2007, but reversed the decision in 2016, citing improvements in compliance with international aviation standards. The European Union has previously had similar bans, lifting them in June 2018.