Print

Mail

wiki links

Indonesia ups resources in search for missing jet

Indonesia beefed up its search for a missing passenger plane yesterday, despatching more spotter aircraft to try to locate the jet nearly a week after its mysterious disappearance.

The scale of the task is immense, with search and rescue teams faced with scouring tens of thousands of square kilometers of land and sea -- greater than the size of many small countries.

Three relatives of missing passengers who were allowed to overfly part of the area on a military Boeing reconnaissance plane, admitted that the chances of success were slim.

"Looking at the thick clouds, from the conditions above, the chances of finding them appear much smaller," said Fanny Duran, who is still waiting for news of three family members on board the Adam Air plane.

The reconnaissance aircraft flew over Toraja and Luwu in South Sulawesi and Poso lake in Central Sulawesi.

The Adam Air plane with 102 passengers and crew vanished off radar screens last Monday halfway through a flight from Surabaya, on Java island, to Manado on the northeast tip of Sulawesi island.

Ships, planes and some 2,700 police, air force, army and search and rescue personnel are now searching for the jet as frantic relatives wait for news of loved ones.

The massive air, sea and land sweep has been badly hampered by bad weather and rugged terrain and uncertainty over where the Boeing went down.

"It is primarily a question of bad visibility. With the low hanging clouds and bad weather, it is difficult to get a clear view of the ground," said W. Suparman, who heads the search and rescue office in Makassar, South Sulawesi.

Overland, the difficult terrain and lack of telecommunications present more problems.

First Air Marshal Eddy Suyanto, who is coordinating the search operations, said three planes based in Makassar were deployed yesterday to comb the central belt of Sulawesi, from the Makassar Strait to the Tolo Bay.

Another took off from an airport in Palu, Central Sulawesi, said Air Force Major Endik of the search and rescue command center at Makassar.

"These areas have been flown over previously but today [Sunday] we will comb them again from the air," he told reporters.

The head of the Makassar Navy Base, Gatot Sugianto, said six navy warships were also looking, although he told ElShinta radio that "until now we have yet not found any convincing signs or indications of a plane crash at sea."

The boats, some equipped with radars and sonar devices, were combing the Makassar Strait along a 320km stretch of Sulawesi's western coast.

Two helicopters yesterday reinforced the air search effort and more aircraft were to join.

A six-strong team of US aviation experts arrived on Saturday in Makassar, but Setyo Raharjo, head of the National Committee for Transport Safety, said they were there to help investigate the possible cause of the accident rather than to join the search itself.

Three US citizens were on board the missing airplane.

Separately, Indonesian Vice President Yusuf Kalla told search officers in Makassar to continue the search whatever the cost. "Do not think about the cost of the search, the government will be responsible for this," he was quoted as saying by the Kompas daily.

Air and marine accidents are common in Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation stretching over 5,000km. Search efforts usually last a week but can be extended if there is hope of finding survivors.

Raharjo said it was not unknown for small aircraft to disappear for years without being found, although there were no cases of a plane as large as this Boeing going missing.

"What we have is that the airplanes, or rather their wreckage, were found years after they had disappeared such as in the mountains of Aceh and in Papua Province," he added.
This story has been viewed 1238 times.