Contact lost with Indonesian jet

[Seth K 3]

12 survive Indonesia jet crash, 90 die

 

By ZAKKI HAKIM, Associated Press Writer

 

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Rescuers found the smoldering wreckage Tuesday of an Indonesian jetliner that went missing during a storm, and officials said 90 people were killed but 12 survived in the country's second major disaster in days. Monday's crash followed the sinking of a passenger ferry late Friday in Indonesia's Java Sea that left 400 people dead or missing.

[Seng Lim 0]

Abstract from channelnewsasia:

 

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp.../250293/1/.html

 

MAKASSAR, Indonesia : Search and rescue teams have not found the wreckage of a plane carrying 102 people which was reported to have crashed into a mountain on Indonesia's Sulawesi island, the regional military commander said Tuesday, contradicting earlier reports.

 

Major General Arif Budi Sampurno told MetroTV that after checking the reported location they had not found any plane wreck.

 

"News from the village head reporting 12 survivors was also not true, the village head said that he never made that report," said Sampurno, whose area of command includes Sulawesi island.

 

Reports early Tuesday said the crash site had been identified from an aerial photograph and that local residents had reported finding bodies and survivors in the jungle of West Sulawesi.

 

Search and rescue teams were dispatched to the area but found no sign of a plane wreck, Sampurno said.

 

"The local commander, the police chief and the governor went to the location and they found nothing, so earlier reports about the location, number of survivors are all untrue. We don't know where that information originates from," he told AFP.

[Min Chun 0]

So..where's the B734???

[Pieter C. 5]

Who's lying here: the officials or the 'witnesses' ???

 

Official Says Indonesian Airliner Still Missing

 

January 2, 2007

An Indonesian air force official said on Tuesday reports that an Adam Air plane with 102 people on board had been found on Sulawesi island were wrong, and that the plane was still missing.

 

Officials had earlier said that wreckage of the Adam Air plane had been found after it had crashed into the mountains in heavy rain. There were reports 12 people had survived the crash.

 

"The location has not been found. We apologize that the news that we conveyed was not true," said First Air Marshal Eddy Suyanto, commander of Hasanuddin air base in Makassar.

 

The Adam Air plane lost contact with the ground on Monday about an hour before it was due to land in Manado in North Sulawesi, the transport ministry said.

 

There were 96 passengers and six crew on board the plane. A copy of the plane's manifest showed three passengers as non-Indonesians. The United States embassy in Jakarta confirmed they were Americans.

 

Suyanto earlier told Radio Elshinta an air force plane had spotted the wreckage of the Boeing 737-400.

 

"The plane was found around 20 km (12 miles) from Polewali (town) in the mountains. The weather is clear," Suyanto had said.

 

Air travel in Indonesia, home to 220 million people, has grown substantially since the liberalization of the airline industry after the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, which enabled privately owned budget airlines to operate.

 

(Reuters)

 

[Andrew Ong 1]

Here is a news statement from Boeing:

 

CHICAGO, Jan. 01, 2007 -- Boeing wishes to express its profound concern to the families and friends of those missing from Adam Air Flt. 574. Boeing is sending technical assistance at the request of the investigating authorities.

[Sandeep G 1]

Very sad news indeed and worsened only by the false hope that the wreckage and some survivors were found. I read that AIrliners.net bit on AdamAir and well.. words cannot describe..

 

Hope that there will be some good news to come out of this.

[Pieter C. 5]

Indonesian Airliner Still Missing

 

January 2, 2007

The fate of an Indonesian airliner missing with 102 people on board remained in doubt late on Tuesday after senior officials apologized for erroneously stating that its wreckage had been found.

 

Officials had earlier said what was left of the plane, a Boeing 737-400 operated by budget carrier Adam Air, had been located in the mountains of Sulawesi island where it had crashed in heavy rain. Reports said 12 people had survived the crash.

 

"The location has not been found. We apologize that the news that we conveyed was not true," First Air Marshal Eddy Suyanto, commander of Hasanuddin air base in Makassar, told reporters.

 

"It's not true that the crash location has been found," Transport Minister Hatta Radjasa told the same news conference, held less than an hour after another in which he had talked about difficulties in reaching what was thought to be the site.

 

"We found nothing when we arrived at the location," Suyanto added.

 

The plane lost contact with the ground on Monday about an hour before it was due to land in Manado in North Sulawesi, the transport ministry said.

 

The plane was carrying 96 passengers and six crew. A copy of its manifest showed three passengers as non-Indonesians. The United States embassy in Jakarta said they were Americans.

 

Suyanto had earlier told Radio Elshinta an air force plane had spotted the wreckage of the Boeing, and a spokesman for Adam Air said 12 people had survived and would be evacuated.

 

In another twist, transport minister Radjasa had already cast doubt on the survivors' report, saying it was based on comments from villagers and could not be confirmed.

 

Relatives of passengers anxiously awaiting news in Makassar reacted to the new developments with shock and dismay.

 

"It was said that the search and rescue team had seen the aircraft. We are confused whom we should trust," Toni Toliu, 48, from Manado said. His sister and her two children were on the plane.

 

Sopiana de Fretes, 49, related to an army official on the plane, said: "Since I got here, the news has been conflicting. It's like we don't get the news that we are supposed to get."

 

Officials said the search would now continue at other sites, concentrating in areas of western Sulawesi from where distress signals had been picked up on Monday before contact with the plane was lost.

 

Searchers face bad weather conditions and rough, jungle terrain.

 

A spokesman for Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had issued a statement in Jakarta, shortly before news broke that the plane had not been found, saying the president wanted a full investigation into what went wrong.

 

"The president orders the transportation minister to evaluate and investigate this accident. The president also asked for an evaluation and investigation on the airworthiness of the plane and standard procedure on airplane operations," the statement said.

 

Thus far transport officials have insisted the Boeing was airworthy and had no record of trouble.

 

The transport ministry said it had last evaluated the plane in December 2005, when it had passed all service checks. The 17-year-old aircraft was due to be checked again in late January.

 

The Boeing had 45,371 flying hours and, according to Adam Air, was powered by General Electric CFM56-3C1 engines.

 

Air travel in Indonesia, home to 220 million people, has grown substantially since the liberalization of the airline industry after the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, which enabled privately owned budget airlines to operate.

 

Adam Air was established in 2002 by Agung Laksono, speaker of Indonesia's parliament and chairman of the company, and Sandra Ang. It began operations in December 2003.

 

(Reuters)

Anger As Indonesia Resumes Airliner Search

 

January 3, 2007

Indonesian rescuers launched new sea, land and air searches on Wednesday for a missing plane with 102 people aboard as anger grew over false official statements that its wreckage had been found.

 

Senior government officials apologized late on Tuesday for erroneously saying the 17-year-old Boeing 737-400, operated by budget carrier Adam Air, had been spotted in the mountains of Sulawesi island after disappearing in heavy rain on Monday.

 

Early reports that 12 people had survived were also officially denied, the general air of confusion prompted reactions of shock, dismay and even scorn from families of the missing passengers and crew.

 

"I feel fooled. This is what I call playing games with the feelings of the victims' relatives," said Peter Tolitton, whose brother was aboard the ill-fated plane.

 

"If up to the ministerial level the information is inaccurate, we doubt the credibility of the officials," Tolitton, a Jakarta resident who was flown by Adam Air to Makassar.

 

The plane was carrying 96 passengers and six crew. A copy of its manifest showed three passengers as non-Indonesians. The US embassy in Jakarta said they were Americans.

 

After a day crammed with confusing information, rescuers resumed their search at daybreak on Wednesday using military planes in areas around the western coast of rugged Sulawesi island, where the plane emitted distress signals before all communication was lost.

 

The renewed effort, in the face of heavy rain and strong winds, was being coordinated from Makassar, Sulawesi's largest city, 1,400 km east of Jakarta.

 

Transport Minister Radjasa told reporters that naval ships had also been sent to the Makassar Strait between Sulawesi and Borneo in case the doomed plane had fallen into the sea.

 

"Our major obstacle is the weather which is quite a significant problem," he said.

 

An Indonesian air force official said aircraft were searching areas between the Sulawesi coastal town of Majene and Toraja, a mountainous region popular with tourists.

 

However, much of it is covered with jungle and forest, and transportation and communication facilities can be poor at best.

 

Officials said the mistaken information about wreckage and survivors being found had come from reports from a local village that police then relayed to government agencies.

 

The confusion over the missing plane highlighted the logistical difficulties of dealing with disasters from quakes and volcanoes to floods and forest fire in an archipelago of 17,000 islands that stretches about as wide as the United States.

 

The Boeing lost contact with the ground on Monday about an hour before it was due to land in Manado in North Sulawesi.

 

Transport officials have insisted the plane, which had clocked up 45,371 flying hours, was airworthy and had no record of trouble.

 

The transport ministry said it had last evaluated the plane in December 2005, when it had passed all service checks. The aircraft was due to be checked again in late January.

 

Joseph Umar Hadi, an opposition member of the Indonesian parliament's transport commission, said officials should be held accountable for the mix-up.

 

Annual checks on planes operated by budget carriers were "very insufficient", he added.

 

"Crude competition among operators has created risks unknown by the public, whether it relates to maintenance or management that encourages thrift," he said.

 

Mustafa Kamal, an MP from the Prosperous Justice Party which is part of the ruling coalition, also chastised the government.

 

"We cannot always tolerate this kind of accident and never solve it. There has never been a strict punishment from the government to the airlines that make this mistake," he said.

 

Air travel in Indonesia, home to 220 million people, has mushroomed since the industry was liberalized following the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, enabling privately owned budget airlines to operate.

 

(Reuters)

 

[Pieter C. 5]

Indonesia Seeks Missing Plane With Foreign Help

 

January 4, 2007

Aircraft from Singapore on Thursday joined Indonesia's search for a Boeing 737 that disappeared in bad weather with 102 people aboard four days ago.

 

Military and civilian aircraft have been scouring the jungles and rugged mountains of western Sulawesi while navy ships combed the Makassar Strait between the islands of Sulawesi and Borneo.

 

But heavy rains and strong winds have hampered the search and the rough terrain has made communication and transport difficult.

 

Government officials have apologized for erroneously saying on Tuesday that the 17-year-old Boeing 737-400, operated by budget carrier Adam Air, had been found and 12 people survived.

 

The missing plane was carrying 96 passengers and six crew. A copy of its manifest showed three passengers as non-Indonesians. The US embassy in Jakarta said they were Americans.

 

Portland's Oregonian newspaper identified the three as wood-products executive Scott Jackson, 54, and daughters Stephanie, 21, and Lindsey, 18.

 

Two Singaporean Fokker-50s have joined Indonesian military aircraft in the search, while three ships have joined the effort and another is on they way, First Air Marshal Eddy Suyanto, commander of the airbase in Makassar said.

 

The United States was also offering unspecified aid.

 

The search coverage is based on distress signals picked up by Singapore on Monday from the doomed plane.

 

Ikhsan Tatang, director general of aviation at Indonesia's transport ministry, said the world's fourth most populous country lacked tools to receive such signals from flights covering its vast territory, which is as wide as the United States.

 

"Not all countries need to have a special satellite to catch such signals. We don't need it because we have international cooperation," he said, adding Indonesia lacked money for that.

 

Officials said the mistaken information about the crash site and survivors came from accounts from a village that police then relayed to government agencies. The circulation of the report drew strong criticism from politicians and passengers' relatives.

 

The confusion over the plane highlighted the logistical difficulties of dealing with disasters, from quakes and volcanoes to floods and forest fires, in an archipelago of 17,000 islands.

 

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered a full investigation into the condition of all commercial planes in Indonesia and what went wrong in the Adam Air case, as well as an evaluation of the nation's transport system.

 

Teungku Burhanuddin, head of the Indonesian National Air Carrier Association, said evaluation results must be followed up.

 

"If it is only to be reported, it will be useless. We also need to evaluate the transport ministry. Do they still have the same old people working in that department?," he told Jakarta-based Radio Elshinta.

 

He added 300,000 commercial flights operate every year in Indonesia so "there is always a small chance for an accident."

 

(Reuters)

 

[Naim 6]

Latest news from detik.com.

 

Gist:

 

1) Thursday night and still no sign of plane.

2) Today 5 aircraft (Airforce B732, Cassa, Nomad; Police Cassa; Singapore Fokker) did 7 sorties to search for missing plane.

3) Search areas: Makassar Straits, Mamuju, Tanaroja.

4) New ELBA signal detected coming from south of Manado

5) Now search party moving into northern Sulawesi.

 

There is also an attempt to dial cellphones belonging to passengers hoping that if one of the phone is active, it could be detected. I guess they have no clue where the plane fell. Looking at my earlier map below, the waypoints shown are the normal flight path from Surabaya to Manado (WAMM).

 

 

Makassar - Hingga Kamis (4/1/2007) malam, belum ada tanda-tanda AdamAir ditemukan. Dengan demikian, genap empat hari pesawat bercat putih itu hilang.

 

Hari ini, 5 pesawat yang wira-wira mencari ke titik-titik yang diduga menjadi tempat jatuhnya pesawat berisi 102 orang itu. Rinciannya, dua sorti Boeing 737, dua sorti pesawat Cassa dan Nomad TNI AL, satu sorti pesawat Cassa milik polisi, dan 2 sorti pesawat Fokker milik Singapura.

 

Daerah yang diubek-ubek adalah Selat Makassar, Mamuju dan Tanatoraja. "Tapi kita belum mendapatkan hasil," kata Danlanud Hasanuddin Marsekal Pertama Eddy Suyanto dalam jumpa pers di Lanud, pukul 18.00 Wita.

 

"Kita tertolong dengan cuaca baik. Mudah-mudahan besok cuaca bisa baik dan kita bisa menemukan pesawat itu," harapnya.

 

Eddy menyatakan, pihaknya mendapat laporan baru ada Elba di selatan Manado. "Kita mencoba mencari sinyal itu. Sebenarnya sinyal itu sudah tertangkap 3 hari lalu. Tapi baru kami terima laporannya," demikian Eddy.

 

Seperti diberitakan sebelumnya, saat ini tim SAR tengah menuju ke Bolaangmongondow (Bolmon), Sulawesi Utara.

 

http://www.detiknews.com/index.php/detik.r...6983/idkanal/10

[Naim 6]

Friday 5/1/07 morning. Latest news is the search team is moving to Nuangan, south of Manado (WAMM), after getting reports of explosion heard by villagers living in Ratauyu, 8km away. Also ELBA signals detected from there yesterday.

 

 

Let's hope they will find it today.

[Mohd Idham 0]

Tragic accident...still can't find the wreckage...

[Andrew Ong 1]

Fingers crossed and hope that the 102 people are okay

[Naim 6]

Fingers crossed and hope that the 102 people are okay

 

Be realistic lah. I think they are all dead.

 

[Radzi 2]

Hope they will find the site, and determine the cause of the crash.

[kianhong 0]

After reading some of the discussions (1,2,3), AdamAir seems to have very serious issue with their a/c and a very bad safety record. <_ with an average age of years for its aircraft fleet and bad maintenance practices they shouldn be allowed to fly at all.>

 

I was in horror when I read about the man-power push back and total communication & navigation lost during flight and end up land 500 miles away from its original destination.

 

My sincere condolences to families of victims. RIP.

[Teoh Z Yao 0]

Man, Adam Air is regular to Penang. Always see the nice orange color 734 there. Sad they have bad maintainance practices... I wonder if the crashed (probably) one frequented PEN?

[Rozhan 0]

Adam Air has its ticket office at KOMTAR.

[Pieter C. 5]

Indonesia DG-Air Transport Ichsan Tatang yesterday backed away from previous reports that the pilots of the missing Adam Air 737-400 sent out two distress calls before the aircraft disappeared Jan. 1. As search efforts intensified, Tatang told reporters that signals from the plane's emergency beacon, which is supposed trigger automatically in the event of a crash, had been picked up on Jan. 1 but that there were no indications of trouble until the 737 disappeared from ATC radar shortly after 2 p.m. Jakarta time. "The [pilots] did not report any complaints about the navigation, the condition of the plane or other technical problems," Tatang said. Flight 574 departed from Java island's Surabaya-Juanda Airport and was headed to Sam Ratulangi Airport in Manado but disappeared in a heavy rainstorm about 1 hr. after takeoff. More than 100 aboard are feared dead.

 

If the signals had been picked-up, wouldn't it be known of her position in that case ???

 

[Naim 6]

...

If the signals had been picked-up, wouldn't it be known of her position in that case ???

 

Good Q. A single-source signal needs readings from (at least) 3 different locations for triangulation, to pin-point coordinates of source. A 4th location is needed if calculating elevation.

 

[Sim Lim Shen 0]

It has since been a few days since the disappearance of the aircraft, but there has been no sighting yet. Why is this incident different from the others in that it is so difficult for the search and rescue team to locate the missing aircraft?

[Chan CS 0]

It has since been a few days since the disappearance of the aircraft, but there has been no sighting yet. Why is this incident different from the others in that it is so difficult for the search and rescue team to locate the missing aircraft?

 

 

Well last time a helicopter went down in Sarawak, long time was needed to locate it, I forgot how long but it's definitely longer than this one, as of now.

[Seng Lim 0]

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp.../250807/1/.html

 

Some interesting part from the above news release:

 

the main focus has shifted to areas south of Manado, the plane's original destination, after Manado's Sam Ratulangi Airport reported detecting a signal from the plane.

 

The signal was detected on Monday around the coastal village of Nuangan in Bolaang Mongondow district, some 110 kilometres (68 miles) southwest of Manado but only reported on Thursday.

 

"We have received a new lead based on the emergency locator beacon aircraft (ELBA), which was detected by the air traffic control at Sam Ratalungi," Air Marshal Eddy Suyanto, commander of the Hasanuddin Air Base at Makassar in South Sulawesi, was quoted as saying in the Republika newspaper.

 

Suyanto is also the official spokesman for the search and rescue team.

 

He said the signal was detected when the plane disappeared from radar but the airport only reported it on Thursday. It was not clear why there was such a long delay.

 

[Naim 6]

Saturday 6/1/07, Day 6, and the search has moved to Palu and the Makassar Straits. This area is way off the normal flight path, which is odd.

 

[Khaled 2]

First they found the aircraft with 12 survivors, then the pilot sent out 2 distress calls. Both turn out to be wrong. Now they picked up a new signal from different place? I hope they know what they're doing...

 

R.I.P to the victims...

[Sneeze Lam 0]

Getting confuse with what have been happened with those resuce team members.

How come still not able to find out at least a little part of the aircraft.

 

RIP, however.