A search-and-rescue team has recovered 24 bodies, plane debris and passenger belongings in the sea north of Jakarta where a Lion Air commercial aircraft crashed yesterday.

However, the round-the-clock operation involving 19 vessels and three helicopters in the Tanjung Karawang waters, failed to find any wreckage of the Boeing 737 Max 8 which went down with 189 people on board.

Details on the operation were supplied by Bambang Suryo Aji, operations director of the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas).

He said: “This morning (9am /10 am in Malaysia), we found 24 bodies, besides pieces of aircraft and some belongings of the passengers.”

Lion Air Flight JT610, carrying 181 passengers and eight crew, went missing minutes after taking off at 6.20am (7.20am in Malaysia) from the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta for the Depati Amir Airport in Pangkal Pinang, Pulau Bangka Belitung, in southern Sumatera. It was scheduled to arrive at the Depati Amir airport at 7.10am (8.10am in Malaysia).

So far, there have been no reports of Malaysians being on board the ill-fated aircraft.

Bambang said the bodies, which were not whole, have been sent to the hospital for identification.

He added that the authorities can only assume that all the passengers and crew have died in the crash.

Yesterday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo ordered the search-and-rescue operation to go on around the clock.

– Bernama