LANCANG ISLAND, Indonesia – Hendrik Mulyadi was checking his crab traps when he heard a huge explosion in the water nearby. The sea rose suddenly, lifting the Indonesian fisherman’s boat as smoke filled the air.
“I was lucky that it didn’t hit me,” he recalled on Monday, sitting at his home on Lancang Island and still visibly shaken by what he saw. “It was like lightning, very fast. It exploded when it hit the water. I saw debris floating. They were plane wreckage. “
Hendrik, 30, was one of five crab fishermen who worked in the water on Saturday afternoon, when Sriwijaya 182’s aerial flight fell from the sky minutes after takeoff with 62 people on board, 10 of them children and babies. The plane crashed in the Java Sea, about 300 feet from where Hendrik was fishing.
Normally a sleeping island with relatively few visitors, Lancang has become a base for the aircraft search and recovery operation led by Basarnas, Indonesia’s national search and rescue agency. The accident site is less than a kilometer from the island’s mangroves, coconut and banana trees.
The islanders, many of whom live in colorful one-story houses, can now see dozens of boats at sea, scanning the area for debris and bodies and trying to retrieve the black box.
The Sriwijaya flight, which was destined for the city of Pontianak, on the island of Borneo, is the third passenger plane in just over six years to land in the Java Sea after taking off from airports on the island of Java.
Air Asia flight 8501 crashed in the Java Sea off the coast of Borneo in December 2014 with 162 people on board as it flew from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore. The investigators ended up blaming the disaster for the failure of a key component and an inadequate response from the flight crew.
And in October 2018, Lion Air flight 610 plunged into the Java Sea northeast of Jakarta, the capital, minutes after takeoff with 189 passengers and crew on board to Pangkal Pinang. The anti-stall system was defective in the Boeing 737 Max, a different model from the plane that crashed this weekend.
Lancang is one of the so-called Thousand Islands, which in fact number around 110 and are spread across the Java Sea north of Jakarta. Some of the islands are popular tourist destinations. Others, like Lancang, are dedicated almost exclusively to fishing.
“Since the Lion Air accident, I often think that when I’m at sea and I see a plane passing by, what if a plane crashes here?” Mr. Hendrik said. “There are many fishermen here. We would die. “
Less than a mile long and a third of a mile wide, Lancang is home to some 2,100 people, almost all of whom are involved in the fishing trade. The small majority Muslim community is just 24 kilometers northeast of Jakarta and is one of the closest to the Thousand Islands to the city’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.
There are no cars and residents can walk or motorbike. The main road is only one lane wide and takes less than an hour to get around the island.
Few islanders have ever flown by plane. On clear days, they can watch them pass overhead as they take off from Jakarta to destinations in the north. Still, Hendrik said he could never have predicted what happened on Saturday.
“I never thought a plane crash could happen here,” he said.
The island’s village chief, Mahtum, 47, who, like many Indonesians, uses only one name, said many families on the island survive and lead simple lives. Lancang remained largely untouched by the coronavirus, with only three cases detected last week. But islanders live under the threat of tsunamis.
The highest elevation in the entire Thousand Island chain is 23 feet, leaving many vulnerable to rising sea levels and the type of extreme storms that delayed Sriwijaya’s flight before takeoff. Lancang’s highest point is 2.10 meters above sea level. Some fishermen thought Saturday’s accident would be a close flood.
“Not just Lancang Island, but all the islands in the Thousand Islands are threatened by high tides and strong winds because of climate change,” said Mahtum.
When the plane crashed into the sea, it was so close to the island that it shook the windows. A fisherman, Sahapi, was in the water with his crew, checking his crab traps not far from Hendrik’s boat when the disaster occurred.
Sahapi, 52, a fisherman on Lancang Island since 1987, said he heard what appeared to be a huge explosion. He felt the sea lift his boat and saw flashes of yellow and red below the surface.
“I saw debris in the water rising,” he said. “Thick black smoke filled the air and the rain was heavy. The water was yellow and red. “
At first, he thought there might have been a tsunami, but then he realized that Mr. Hendrik’s boat was closer to the explosion site. He decided that his friend must have been struck by lightning.
“I was afraid of being rolled by the wave,” he said. “I looked right and left and I didn’t see my friend’s boat.”
“I didn’t hear any plane sounds,” he said.
He ran home to deliver what he thought was the bad news of Mr. Hendrik’s death. To his relief, Mr. Hendrik returned shortly afterwards and reported that there was a plane crash.
Mr. Sahapi took police from the island to the scene after he learned of the accident and helped them use an anchor to pull some threads and pieces of clothing from the aircraft.
On Sunday, the researchers located the plane’s flight data recorders and hoped to retrieve them soon. But it could take months for investigators to determine the cause of the accident. Efforts continued on Monday to extract the bodies and retrieve the data recorders from the wreckage.
The Sriwijaya plane, a Boeing 737-500, was considered safe to fly before takeoff and the airline had never been in an accident that resulted in deaths on board. More than 50 ships and thousands of people are involved in the search and recovery.
Mr. Hendrik, who was born and raised in Lancang, started fishing with his father as a child and has been a fisherman ever since. His crew of two was on his 33-foot boat with him at the time of the accident.
He said he was still in shock after what he testified, that he refused to go with the police to show the location.
“I was still in trauma,” he said. “I would sit at home shaking and stutter as I spoke. I have lost my appetite so far. I’m still shocked. “
Authorities have not allowed Lancang crab fishermen to check their traps near the accident site since Saturday. Mr. Hendrik has 550 traps waiting at sea.