Body parts, clothing and scraps of metal were hauled from waters near Indonesia's capital on Sunday after a Boeing passenger plane with 62 people on board crashed a day earlier.
The Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500 plunged into a steep dive about four minutes after it left Soekarno-Hatta international airport in Jakarta on Saturday afternoon.
No reasons have yet been given for the crash, with authorities focusing on a frantic search and rescue effort that appeared to offer no hope of finding any survivors.
"As of this morning, we've received two (body) bags, one with passenger belongings and the other with body parts," Jakarta police spokesman Yusri Yunus told Metro TV.
The discovery came as a flotilla of warships, helicopters and divers were deployed off the coast of the sprawling city Sunday.
This flight path of Indonesian Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 before it dropped off radar, Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021. Source: AP/Flightradar24.com
Sixty-two passengers and crew were on board, including 10 children, all of them Indonesians, according to authorities.
Sriwijaya Air flight SJ182 was bound for Pontianak city on Indonesia's section of Borneo island, about 90 minutes flying time over the Java Sea.
It crashed in the Java Sea near popular day-trip tourist islands just off the coast.
Distraught relatives waited nervously for news at Pontianak airport on Saturday night.
"I have four family members on the flight - my wife and three children," Yaman Zai said as he sobbed. "(My wife) sent me a picture of the baby today ... How could my heart not be torn into pieces?"
Officials said Sunday they would continue their search by sea and air while also using sonar radar to pick up more signs of the downed jet.
Divers marked at least three sites at the suspected crash site with orange ballons, according to an AFP reporter on the scene.
"From our observation, it is strongly believed the coordinates match the ones from the plane's last signal contact," said Hadi Tjahjanto, head of Indonesia's military.
Hundreds of personnel from search and rescue, the navy, the police, with 10 warships were also taking part in the search effort.
Relatives of passengers arrive at a crisis centre at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang Source: EPA
Sudden dive
Data from FlightRadar24 said the plane reached an altitude of nearly 3,350 metres before dropping suddenly. It then lost contact with air traffic control.
Indonesian Transport Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said Saturday that the jet appeared to deviate from its intended course just before it disappeared from radar.
Sriwijaya Air, which has about 19 Boeing jets that fly to destinations in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, has said only that it was investigating the loss of contact.
In October 2018, 189 people were killed when about 12 minutes after take-off from Jakarta on a routine one-hour flight.
That crash - - saw Boeing hit with $2.5 billion USD in fines over claims it defrauded regulators overseeing the 737 MAX model, which was grounded worldwide following the two deadly crashes.
The Boeing jet thought to have crashed Saturday is not a MAX model and was 26 years old, according to authorities.
"We are aware of media reports from Jakarta, and are closely monitoring the situation," the US-based planemaker said in an initial statement.
Indonesia's aviation sector has long suffered from a reputation for poor safety, and its airlines were once banned from entering US and European airspace.
In 2014, an AirAsia plane crashed with the loss of 162 lives.
Domestic investigators' final report on the AirAsia crash showed a chronically faulty component in a rudder control system, poor maintenance and the pilots' inadequate response were major factors in what was supposed to be a routine flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.
A year later, in 2015, more than 140 people, including people on the ground, were killed when a military plane crashed shortly after takeoff in Medan on Sumatra island.
