The coordinates of the missing plane have been found and given to all Navy vessels in the area, a Navy official has told reporters.

“The Indonesian Navy has determined the coordinates of a Sriwijaya Air plane that went missing after taking off from the capital Jakarta and ships have been deployed to the location,” Reuters reported Abdul Rasyid as saying.

“The coordinates have been found and have been given to all Navy vessels in the area,” he said.

Defence equipment has been deployed to the site of a suspected crash, the operations deputy of the search and rescue agency Basarnas has reportedly told a press conference.

“After receiving the information, we will depart for the defense equipment to the location where the plane was suspected to have crashed. So the position of the plane after it lost contact was between Laki Island and Lancang Island,” Major General TNI Bambang Suryo Aji was reported as saying by the BBC Indonesian service.

The location is near where footage showed suspected debris being pulled from the water, and where witnesses have been reported as seeing an explosion.

Indonesian transport minister Budi Karya has confirmed in a press conference that 62 people had been aboard, including 12 crew. 

Another official had said earlier there were 56 passengers and six crew. 

10 passengers were children, an official with search and rescue agency Basarnas said earlier.

Concerned relatives are reported to be waiting at the airport in Pontianak for loved ones on the missing flight.

Local media reports based on witness accounts suggest the plane may have crashed in the Thousand Islands, or Kepulauan Seribu, archipelago.

A fisherman named Solihin told the BBC Indonesian service that a plane crashed into the water near his boat.

“The plane fell like lightning into the sea and exploded in the water,” he said. “It was pretty close to us, the shards of a kind of plywood almost hit my ship.”

And the Thousand Islands Regent, Junaedi, was reported by online news site Detik as saying that nearby residents had seen what appeared to be a plane crash near the uninhabited island of Laki – which lies 6km from the mainland.

CNN Indonesia reported Jakarta’s deputy governor, Ahmad Riza Patria, as saying that – based on Junaedi’s earlier comments – the plane was thought to have crashed in the water near Laki, but that so far only debris had been found.

Footage shows residents in the Thousand Islands archipelago pulling wires and other debris from the water during a reported search mission near Lancang Island.

“We found some cables, a piece of jeans, and pieces of metal on the water,” Zulkifli, a security official, told CNN Indonesia.

“We are aware of media reports from Jakarta, and are closely monitoring the situation. We are working to gather more information,” a Boeing spokesperson has told Reuters.

With darkness having fallen in Java, rescue agency official Agus Haryono told Reuters that 50 people were taking part in the search and that they would keep working into the night.

Indonesia has been plagued by transportation accidents on land, sea and air because of overcrowding on ferries, ageing infrastructure and poorly enforced safety standards.

In October 2018, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet operated by Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea just minutes after taking off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. 

It was the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since 1997, when 234 people were killed on a Garuda flight near Medan on Sumatra island, and was the first of two tragedies that led to the 20-month grounding of the Max.

In December 2014, an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea, killing 162 people.

Rescuers have found “suspected debris” in waters north of the city, an official of the Basarnas search and rescue agency said.

Agus Haryono told Reuters it had not been confirmed that the debris came from Sriwijaya Air Flight SJ182