Five minutes after take off, plane with 50 passengers on board missing from Indonesia

A passenger plane with about 50 people on board has been reported missing minutes after take-off from the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

According to reports, the Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737 lost contact en route to Pontianak in West Kalimantan province.

Flight tracking website Flight radar24.com said the aircraft lost more than 3,000m (10,000ft) in altitude in less than a minute.

The country’s Transport Ministry said search and rescue efforts were underway.

Sriwijaya Air, a local carrier, said it was still gathering information about the flight, the report said.

The plane is not a 737 Max, the Boeing model involved in two major crashes in recent years.

The first of those, in October 2018, involved an Indonesian Lion Air flight which plunged into the sea killing 189 people.