‘We surrender to the Almighty’: Indonesian families mourn as divers pluck Boeing jet wreckage from Java Sea
- Relatives are waiting for remains and clues from Sriwijaya Air flight SJ 182, which crashed off Jakarta on Saturday
- The Boeing 737-500 carrying 62 people plunged into the Java Sea shortly after take-off
When Rion Yogatama, 30, left his home in Pangkal Pinang, the capital of the Bangka-Belitung tin mining region, on Saturday morning, his family expected him to fly to the Indonesian capital Jakarta for a short transit, before continuing to Pontianak in West Kalimantan to resume work as a telecommunications tower maintenance officer.
Instead, they found out just hours later that his Sriwijaya Air flight SJ 182 never made it to its final destination and was feared to have crashed into the Java Sea.
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Indonesian families wait for clues as search for crashed Boeing 737 continues in Java Sea
Rion’s uncle Suyitno, who lives in the city of Lubuklinggau in the southern part of Sumatra island, immediately set off for the capital with Rion’s parents, who brought with them their son’s identity card and birth certificate. The journey took them 17 hours by car.
“We surrender his fate to the Almighty. If he is still alive then we thank God but we have little hope of that happening,” he said. “I’m not traumatised [about flying] … I often travel by planes but I told my family, whenever we board a plane, we actually enter a coffin.”
