Here’s what we know so far:

With that, we are closing the live updates for today. It has been eight hours since Lion Air flight JT610 is estimated to have crashed.

The family is devastated by the news and are gathering in Delhi today. “We saw it on the television this morning and didn’t know whether to believe it,” Gandhi said. “We are all speechless.”

“He loved his job, he was very much interested in it,” Gandhi said.

He says Suneja’s parents learned of the disaster this morning and are booked to fly to Jakarta tonight. Suneja lived in Jakarta with his wife – they were married two years ago – but the rest of the family is from Delhi.

I have just spoken with Kapish Gandhi, a cousin of the pilot Bhavye Suneja.

Indonesian president Joko Widodo has expressed his condolences to the families of victims in a televised address. He says the government is focused on the search and rescue operation currently underway.

Further details said the aircraft had registration number PK-LQP, it was made in 2018 and started its operation at Lion Air on 15 August 2018.

Lion Air have also turned their website and social media accounts to black-and-white.

The captain was Bhavye Suneja, a resident of Jakarta originally from New Delhi. His Linkedin profile said he worked at Lion Air since March 2011, and the airline said he had 6,000 flight hours. He was also a trainee pilot with Emirates from September and December 2010.

Lion Air have released the names of the flight’s captain, co-pilot and full crew.

He said Lion had no plans to ground the rest of its MAX 8 fleet.

Sirait said Lion had 11 aircraft of the same model – the new Boeing 737 MAX 8 – and none had suffered the same problem.

“This plane previously flew from Denpasar to Jakarta,” he said. “There was a report of a technical issue which had been resolved according to procedure.”

Edward Sirait told reporters the plane was cleared to fly “according to procedure” but did not specify what the “technical issue” was.

Some more on those comments from Lion Air’s CEO that the plane that crashed today suffered “a technical issue” on Sunday.

The release repeats comments earlier that investigators will not speculate on the cause of the crash until they recover the black box.

“The aircraft beacon has been registered and declared good until August 2019. The crash location is around the coordinates 05.46.15 S - 107.07.16 E. 34 nautical miles from the Jakarta SAR office.”

“The Emergency Local Transmitter beacon on the plane did not emit a distress signal. Thus, the crash of the plane was not monitored by the Medium Earth Orbital Local User Terminal at the Basarnas [Search and Rescue] head office.

“The cause of the crash of the 737 Lion Air Boeing plane on the Jakarta-Pangkal Pinang route is still a big question,” it says.

It also confirms that the emergency beacon did not emit a distress signal, despite being certified as working until August 2019.

Indonesia’s Search And Rescue Agency has released an official statement which says the reason for the crash is still unclear.

“Following the fatal crash of a Lion Air plane on 29 October 2018, Australian government officials and contractors have been instructed not to fly on Lion Air. This decision will be reviewed when the findings of the crash investigation are clear”.

The advice sent by Smartraveller – a service of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade – applies to all Australian government contractors as well.

Australian government officials have been formally instructed not to fly on Lion Air, according to an email sent today.

The airplane model of the Lion Air flight which crashed today had only been in service globally for 18 months and boasted of being the “world’s most reliable airplane”.

The 737 MAX 8 model was first operated for a commercial flight in May 2017 by Malindo Air but has since been adopted by airlines around the world

The plane is a variant of the Boeing 737 Max series, which is the fastest selling airplane in Boeing history. Worth upwards of £70m apiece, the Max 8 version has an air range of 6,570 km, a passenger capacity of up to 210 passengers and boasted of reducing carbon emissions by 20%, as well as reducing cabin noise by 40%.

The planes are built at Boeing’s factory in Renton, Washington in the US.

It is a popular model which has been purchased by airlines across the world, including American Airlines, United Airlines, Ryanair, Jet Airlines, FlyDubai, Norwegian Air, Iceland Air, SilkAir, Turkish Airlines, Korean Air, Air Canada and Malaysia Airlines among many others.

Back in 2012, Lion Air were among the first to finalise a a $22.4bn order with Boeing which included 201 of the 737 MAX airplanes. But as of April this year, only eight of the planes had been delivered to Lion Air.

According to company reports, the Boeing 737 MAX had received 4,783 firm orders from over 100 countries as of September.

The crash in Indonesia is the first incident involving the 737 Max model. In a statement released after the Indonesia crash, Boeing said the company “stands ready to provide technical assistance to the accident investigation.”

Updated at 06.33 EDT