On Sunday, the Indonesian authorities found the black boxes of the Sriwijaya Air jet that crashed into the sea shortly after departing from Jakarta, the capital, as human body parts and suspected aircraft parts were recovered.

On Saturday, the Boeing 737-500 with 62 passengers and crew was heading to Pontianak in West Kalimantan until it vanished four minutes after takeoff from the radar screens.

Since 189 passengers and crew were killed in 2018 when a Lion Air Boeing 737 Max also plummeted into the Java Sea shortly after takeoff from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, this is the first major air crash in Indonesia.

According to the Aviation Safety Network database, even before the latest accident, more people were killed in air crashes in Indonesia than in any other country over the past decade.

National Transport Safety Committee Chief of Indonesia Soerjanto Tjahjono said the locations of the two black boxes of Flight SJ 182 had been found.

"Hopefully, we can retrieve them soon," military chief Hadi Tjahjanto said, without providing an approximate timeline.

Bits of debris were carried by rescuers to Jakarta port. Authorities suggested that they had come from a depth of 23 meters (75 feet) near a group of islands off the coast of Jakarta.

One twisted piece of metal was painted in the blue and red Sriwijaya Air colors. Indonesian authorities said that body parts and clothing had also been retrieved.

The police asked families to provide information to help identify bodies, such as dental records and DNA samples.

The aircraft had 12 crew members and 50 passengers on board, all of them Indonesians, including 7 children and 3 babies.

Speaking at the palace in Bogor, President Joko Widodo expressed "deep condolences" for the disaster and urged the public to pray that the missing people could be found.