Indonesian plane with 188 on board crashes off Jakarta

Jakarta: A Lion Air Boeing 737 passenger plane carrying 188 people on board came down minutes after taking off from the Indonesian capital on Monday. A rescue and search operation was underway, officials said.

"Several pieces of Lion Air JT 610 aircraft that crashed in the waters of Karawang (was found)," Head of the Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management Sutopo Purwo Nugroho tweeted.

The budget airline's aircraft was carrying 178 adult passengers, a child, two babies with two pilots and five flight attendants, Nugroho said, adding that the National Search and Rescue Agency, Basarnas, and the Ministry of Transportation wwere "handling" the situation.

"Some ships tug boats were on location," he added.

Flight JT-610, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 -- a brand new type of aircraft -- was on a scheduled flight to Pangkal Pinang, the main city in the Bangka Belitung Islands.

It lost contact with ground control a few minutes after take-off, and was last tracked crossing the sea. It was unclear if there are any survivors, the BBC had reported minutes before Yusuf Latif, a spokesman for the national search and rescue agency said: "It has been confirmed that it has crashed."

The Lion Air flight took off from Jakarta at 6.20 a.m. After a short flight, it was due to arrive in Pangkal Pinang an hour later, the BBC said. But it lost contact with ground control at 6.33 a.m.

Nugroho tweeted images showing debris and personal belongings that came from the aircraft. Officials have also held a news conference to keep the kin of the victims informed about all measures being taken.

He also shared a video he said had been taken from a tugboat off Karawang, just east of Jakarta, which appeared to show debris floating in the water.

At 6.45 a.m. a vessel traffic service officer, Suyadi, received a report from a tugboat, AS Jaya II, that the crew had seen the debris of a plane, The Jakarta Post reported

They suspected it to be the Lion Air flight floating near Tanjung Bungin in Karawang in West Java.

"At 7.15 a.m. the tugboat reported it had approached the site and the crew saw the debris of a plane," Suyadi said.

Two other ships, a tanker and a cargo ship, near the location were approaching the site, Suyadi said, and a Basarnas rescue boat was also on its way.

A flight tracking website Flightradar24 said the aircraft had only been delivered to Lion Air in August, the BBC reported.

Aviation consultant Gerry Soejatman told the BBC the MAX 8 had been experiencing problems since it was introduced, including problems maintaining a level flight.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago, is heavily reliant on air travel, but many of its airlines have a poor safety record.

In 2013, Lion Air flight 904 crashed into the sea on landing at Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport. All 108 people on board survived. In 2004, a Lion Air flight 538 from Jakarta crashed and broke up on landing at Solo City, killing 25 people, the BBC reported.