The National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) received a report on Monday morning that air traffic control had lost contact with a Lion Air flight from Jakarta to Pangkalpinang in Bangka Belitung.
A vessel traffic service officer in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, Suyadi, told The Jakarta Post that at 6:45 a.m. he received a report from a tugboat, AS Jaya II, that the crew had seen a downed plane, suspected to be a Lion Air plane, in Tanjung Bungin in Karawang, West Java.
The directorate general is coordinating with relevant authorities to conduct search and rescue operations, she said.
"The directorate general is coordinating with National Search and Rescue Agency, Lion Air as the operator, the Sea Transportation Directorate General and the Indonesian Flight Navigation Service Institution (LPPNPI) in search and rescue activities for the JT 610 plane," Sindu Rahayu of the Air Transportation Directorate General said in a statement on Monday morning.
A vessel traffic service officer at Tanjung Priok Port in North Jakarta, Suyadi, told The Jakarta Post that a tugboat crew reported to him that they saw the debris of the plane 7 nautical miles (12.96 kilometers) north of Tanjung Bungin, Karawang, West Java.
The flight was operated by Boeing 737 MAX 8 registration PK-LQP. The aircraft was delivered to Lion Air in August of this year. It is powered by two CFM LEAP-1B engines. https://t.co/Jv0z8vytv3 #JT610 pic.twitter.com/yCkR2PbMUa — Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) October 29, 2018
Flightradar24, a Swedish internet-based service that shows real-time commercial aircraft flight information on a map, tweeted on Monday morning Jakarta time that the plane was "brand new" and Lion Air received it only in August this year.
The plane was scheduled to land at Depati Amir Airport in Pangkalpinang at 7:10 a.m. Jakarta time.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/10/29/breaking-178-passengers-on-downed-lion-air-flight-ministry-says.html
An Indonesian man who was supposed to board the ill-fated Lion Air plane that plunged into the sea with 189 people on board missed his flight because he was stuck in Jakarta's notorious traffic.
Sony Setiawan, an official in Indonesia's finance ministry, was planning to catch Flight JT610 from the capital to Depati Amir airport in Pangkal Pinang — an hour-long trip he and his colleagues made on a weekly basis.
However on Monday he was held up on a toll road for hours and arrived at Soekarno-Hatta airport at 6:20am (local time) — just as the doomed aircraft took off.
The flight lost contact with air traffic control 13 minutes into the trip, with witnesses reporting seeing it nosedive into the Java Sea.
"Every week I go to Bandung [West Java] to visit my family there, and every Monday I take that early flight JT610 from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang with my colleagues," Mr Setiawan told local media.
"I don't know why, but this time, there was massive traffic on the toll road to the airport. "Normally, I arrive at Jakarta [airport] at around 3:00am, but this morning I arrived at 6:20am."
More at https://abc.net.au/news/2018-10-30/indonesian-man-misses-lion-air-flight-due-to-traffic/10445988