The last messages of passengers on the Boeing B737-500 plane which plunged into the sea have been revealed.
Only four minutes after Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 took off from Soekarno-Hatta international airport on Saturday at 1:56 pm, the plane crashed almost 10,000ft into the Java sea, with horrified witnesses saying they heard two explosions.
The heartbreaking final posts and messages of the passengers have been revealed.
Ratih Windania shared a selfie with her children as they excitedly boarded the plane.
“Bye bye family. We’re heading home for now,” she said.
They were initially planning to take an earlier flight but changed at the last minute.
Her heartbroken brother, Irfansyah Riyanto, shared a photo on Instagram with the family and wrote: “Pray for us.”
Irfansyah told reporters: “We feel powerless, we can only wait and hope to have any information soon.”
He said that his sister and her children had originally been due to take an earlier flight but he did not know why their schedule was changed.
“I was the one who drove them to the airport, helped with the check-ins and the luggage … I feel like I still can’t believe this and it happened too fast,” he said in tears.
Officers asked relatives to provide information to help identify the bodies retrieved such as DNA samples and dental records.
The brother of co-pilot Diego Mamahit said that he had been asked for a blood sample.
“I believe my younger brother survived, these are just for the police procedure. Diego is a good man, we still believe Diego survived,” Mamahit said.
The family member of pilot Afwan, who had almost 20 years of commercial flying experience, said: “We the family still hope for good news.”
Pancaya Widiya Nursanti, a teacher in Pontianak, was one of the passengers onboard. Her husband Rafiq Yusuf Al Idrus shared the last conversation he had with her.
“I was joking by saying that when she arrived in Pontianak we would eat satay together,” he shared.
“She contacted me via Whatsapp at 2.05 p.m with laughter. She was already boarding the plane and she said the weather conditions were not good. I said pray a lot, please.”
62 people, including seven kids and three babies, were onboard the 26-year-old plane.
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