A Boeing Co. passenger plane carrying 62 people crashed into the Java Sea on Saturday, Indonesian authorities said.
The Sriwijaya Air jet lost contact with air-traffic controllers and disappeared from radar minutes after taking off from the country’s capital, Jakarta, transport ministry officials said. It was on a 90-minute flight from Jakarta to Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan province on Indonesia’s Borneo island, and went missing at 2:40 p.m. local time, a spokeswoman for the ministry, Adita Irawati, said.
The aircraft involved was a 26-year-old Boeing 737-500, according to Theodora Erika, a spokeswoman for Sriwijaya Air, which is an Indonesian carrier. Sriwijaya flight SJ182 departed at 2:36 p.m. local time, climbing to a maximum altitude of 10,900 feet about four minutes later and then beginning a steep descent, according to aviation data provider Flightradar24. The last data signal from the aircraft was at an altitude of 250 feet,…