Contact lost with Indonesian jet

[Fitri Shukri 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?

 

The TV program "LOST" comes into my mind now!

[H Azmal 0]

They found something:-

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6240405.stm

 

Large metal objects that may be the wreckage of a missing Indonesian jet have been located on the seabed, an Indonesian navy commander says.

 

First Admiral Gatot Subyanto said the metal had been detected in three locations by Indonesian naval ships off the west coast of Sulawesi.

 

He said it was not clear what the metal was but a US navy ship is due to arrive which may be able to identify it.

 

The Boeing 737 disappeared from radars a week ago carrying 102 people.

 

Meanwhile, there has been some good news in the hunt for survivors of a ferry disaster off the Javan coast nine days ago.

 

Fourteen people have been rescued by a passing ship.

 

This brings to around 250 survivors picked up so far - less than half the number of passengers believed to have been on board at the time it sank.

 

Three sites

 

First Admiral Subyanto said naval ships combing the seas off Mamuju on Sulawesi's western coast for the missing jet had detected the metal objects between three and six kilometres apart on the seabed.

 

An Indonesian airline crew member helps search for the missing jet on 7 January 2007

The search involves thousands of soldiers, police and civilians

 

"There were large metal objects at three different points, "he told the AFP news agency.

 

"The thing is, what these metal objects are, we cannot say. We do not have the necessary equipment."

 

The naval ships are equipped with a basic sonar system, but more sophisticated mapping equipment is needed to determine the objects' exact shape.

 

A US Navy ship, the USNS Mary Sears, carrying the necessary equipment, is expected to arrive in the area on Tuesday.

 

"We will direct them to the site," Admiral Subyanto told El Shinta radio.

 

Indonesia's navy had begun a search of the area on the advice of a local fisherman, who had seen a low flying plane, an officer involved in the operation said.

 

False leads

 

A massive air, land and sea operation has been under way to look for the Adam Air flight that went down on its way from Java to the northern Sulawesi town of Manado on New Year's Day.

 

A team of US investigators has already arrived to help with the search, together with nearly 3,000 soldiers, police and civilians.

 

Map of Indonesia

 

First Air Marshal Eddy Suyanto told the French news agency AFP earlier that Monday's search would continue to focus on areas "that have already been combed".

 

"There is no extension of the search, but it is now more detailed," he said.

 

Bad weather has hampered the search, as have false leads.

 

Government officials had to apologise soon after the plane's disappearance for erroneously saying that the wreckage had been found.

 

Vice-President Yusuf Kalla said over the weekend that the search would continue despite the cost.

 

"It's impossible that it just disappeared," he said. "Even if it takes a month ... we have to keep searching."

 

But some relatives of missing passengers have admitted to reporters that they believe the chances of anyone being found alive are slim.

Edited January 8, 2007 by H Azmal

[Pieter C. 5]

Underwater Object Found In Indonesia Plane Search

 

January 8, 2007

An Indonesian navy ship searching for a missing commercial airliner detected a large undersea object off the west coast of Sulawesi on Monday, but it has not been confirmed whether it was the plane.

 

The 17-year-old Boeing 737-400 operated by Indonesian budget carrier Adam Air went missing in bad weather a week ago after its pilot reported crosswinds and asked for safe coordinates from the airport in Makassar, Sulawesi island's largest city.

 

"We suspect that it was a metal object 1,050 metres (1,150 yards) under the sea off Mamuju. It could not be confirmed yet whether it was the Adam Air plane," Tony Syaiful, the spokesman of the navy's Eastern Fleet, told Jakarta-based Radio Elshinta.

 

Mamuju is a seaside town in West Sulawesi province.

 

The USNS Mary Sears, a US ship with sonar capability and the ability to detect metal underwater, will arrive on Tuesday to join the search, which already includes at least four ships, two Indonesian air force planes, two helicopters, and thousands of troops and police on the ground.

 

Separately, a military spokesman said on Monday two more Indonesian Air Force helicopters will take part in the search.

 

The search was focused on the Bone Strait between the two southern arms of Sulawesi island and the onshore areas of western Sulawesi, Captain Mulyadi said in Makassar, from where efforts are being coordinated.

 

Indonesian officials will be cautious in announcing any discovery after erroneously saying the plane had been spotted in Sulawesi's mountains on Tuesday when accounts from a local village were relayed to the highest level without checks.

 

The ill-fated plane heading for North Sulawesi provincial capital Manado carried 96 passengers and six crew.

 

The search has been hampered by bad weather, with the area's jungle-covered mountains also making it difficult to spot things from the air.

 

The region lacks roads and communications are often poor.

 

In addition to the US ship and an American military plane, foreign aid has included a Singapore Air Force Fokker-50 search plane.

 

The pilot made no distress call from the plane, which took off from Surabaya on Java island on January 1 for Manado, provincial capital of North Sulawesi.

 

(Reuters)

 

[Mohd Firdaus Bolong 0]

Not a thing can be said to change this situation.Find the wreckage and pay some last respects to the passengers.All they can do now is be strict on airlines.It's no coincidence these things happens with aslarming frequency.Something must be really wrong.RIP to the passengers....

[Norhisham K 0]

On most abnormal or emergency situations, the trained pilots should be able to at least send a distress message or inform the ATC via radio calls. I hope it is not the rudder jammed or reverser deployed inflight problem coz these could result in an uncontrollable or awkward attitude of the aircraft. I believe the flight path has VHF radio coverage. CFIT or controlled flight into terrain may give indication to the ATC a quiet and normal operation. Whatever it is, lets pray and hope for the best.

[Naim 6]

8/1/07. Day 8.

 

A fisherman claimed he heard and saw a low-flying plane in bad weather around 2.30pm 1/1/07, followed by sound of explosion. Location of eyewitness is as on map, and they found the metallic object in the vicinity.

 

 

Zoom-in.

 

[Naim 6]

X1, X2, X2 are spots where metallic objects were detected. Compare with eyewitness's location, who claimed to see a low noisy plane flying south towards Mamuju then turning right (towards west) before plunging in bad weather.

 

[Map by moi]

 

US ship USNS Mary Sears will arrive today, can detect objects down to 1,800m.

 

Ship details HERE.

 

Info: Detik

Edited January 9, 2007 by Naim

[Tamizi Hj Tamby 1]

Tuesday,January 9th 2006.Day 9.

 

From today's newspaper (Borneo Post),The Indonesians went into rampage as they launch a strike in front of Adam Air headquarters at Jakarta,demanding the government to cease operations of Adam Air.

 

From my point of view,this is mysterious crash i've ever seen..It takes a long time to recover the wreckage of the ill-fated aircraft.Let's hope that may the Almighty God will assisting the Indonesians in the search for the ill-fated aircraft.If the victims are still alive,that's good.But if all of the passengers vanished,let's us pray to God that the wreckage of the plane is found.Amin...

[Sandeep G 1]

it truly is mind boggling... I fear that if the aircraft went vertically into the ground at high speed, finding it would be very very difficult in the thick jungles of Sulawesi...

 

If it did crash in the ocean, then surely there will be plenty of metal and debris floating in the ocean....... it wouldn't simply sink.. it would have broken up into thousands or millions of pieces.. and there is always a floating debris trail in water crashes.. think of Swissair 111, TWA, The Peruvian 757... It really doesn't make sense.

[Tamizi Hj Tamby 1]

it truly is mind boggling... I fear that if the aircraft went vertically into the ground at high speed, finding it would be very very difficult in the thick jungles of Sulawesi...

 

If it did crash in the ocean, then surely there will be plenty of metal and debris floating in the ocean....... it wouldn't simply sink.. it would have broken up into thousands or millions of pieces.. and there is always a floating debris trail in water crashes.. think of Swissair 111, TWA, The Peruvian 757... It really doesn't make sense.

 

Hmm,you're right,Sandeep.But who knows,maybe the sea condition on that time was quite bad,causing the floating debris washed away by the sea.

[Naim 6]

From Sydney Morning Herald

January 10, 2007

 

Mystery of the Boeing that simply vanished

 

The fate of flight KI 574 may never become known, writes Lindsay

Murdoch in Jakarta.

 

REFRI WIDODO sounded worried. "The plane has been hit by crosswinds

from the starboard side," the pilot of Adam Air flight KI 574 radioed

to air traffic control while flying at 30,000 feet over a remote part

of the Indonesian archipelago 10 days ago.

 

Ten minutes later, as winds of up to 137 kmh buffeted the aircraft

carrying six crew and 96 passengers, Widodo again contacted the air

traffic controller at Makassar, on Indonesia's Sulawesi island, and

asked about the plane's position.

 

"OK," Widodo responded after the controller told him where he saw the

plane on a radar screen. Moments later the controller's screen went

blank, thus prompting what could become one of aviation's deepest

mysteries.

 

How can a 40-metre Boeing 737-400 vanish without trace in an age of

sophisticated satellite monitoring and radar tracking?

 

No debris has been found despite a wide search of the area where the

18-year-old low-cost airliner is presumed to have crashed into the sea

or the jungle ravines of western Sulawesi.

 

A report on Monday by an Indonesian Navy ship that it had detected

three metal objects on the ocean floor north of the town of Mamuju in

West Sulawesi province was yesterday being treated sceptically by

Indonesian officials anxious not to further increase the anguish of

the relatives and friends of the plane's missing passengers and crew.

 

If it is the plane, officials say, why isn't there any floating debris

such as safety jackets or seats?

 

Within hours of the plane's disappearance on New Year's Day, search

officials had wrongly announced that the plane's wreckage had been

found and that 12 survivors had made their way to a nearby village.

 

Bizarrely, they even quoted witnesses as saying, "There are bodies

everywhere."

 

Search officials had apparently been quick to accept village rumours

as fact, prompting a flurry of ministerial apologies, a presidential

inquiry and questions about the conduct of the search.

 

The plane's disappearance has also raised questions about Indonesia's

booming airline industry, which has seen 19 new carriers take to the

skies since deregulation in 1999.

 

The last co-ordinates of the Adam Air plane were recorded by

Singaporean authorities, also causing concern about Indonesia's

ability to monitor its own airspace. Tempo magazine reported that

equipment in Indonesia that should have picked up signals recording

the crash had been inoperative for a year and requests for repairs had

gone unanswered.

 

Government officials yesterday summoned airline owners to a meeting in

Jakarta to discuss safety and other concerns.

 

The owners were told enforcement agencies could not be everywhere and

they were asked to take more responsibility for their safety

standards.

 

Transport safety officials admit not one airline operator has been

prosecuted over airline crashes or safety breaches in Indonesia in

years.

 

Each year 30 million people board budget Indonesian carriers, many of

which have dubious safety records. More than 250 people have been

killed in Indonesian air crashes since 2004.

 

Last year alone there were 15 mishaps, many involving planes

overshooting runways.

 

Adam Air, a budget carrier co-founded by Agung Laksono, the Speaker of

Indonesia's parliament, has been the focus of growing scrutiny. The

Straits Times in Singapore this week quoted sources who saw an

official aviation report which reported that "strange events" took

place on the fight deck of an Adam Air plane that was forced to make

an emergency landing at a small airport on Lombok in February last

year.

 

The plane was 400 kilometres off course. The next day it took off

without approval and before it could be examined by Indonesia's

National Transport Safety Committee.

 

The Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, last week ordered

that reports of any similar aviation incidents in future be made

public.

 

Seventeen Adam Air pilots resigned in May 2005, citing unsafe

conditions. They were accused by the company of breaking their

contracts; the court case has not yet been settled.

 

Sutan Solahudin, one of the pilots who quit, said he flew an Adam Air

plane that had damaged navigation equipment. "I was pressured by the

owners over the phone to fly the plane," he said.

 

Danang Parikesit, a senior researcher with Indonesia's Transport

Society, a non-government organisation that monitors airline safety,

said yesterday deregulation of the country's airline industry has not

been accompanied by proper safety enforcement.

 

He said there was no requirement, for example, for companies wanting

an airline licence in Indonesia to prove they had a good safety

record.

 

The US Navy ship USNS Mary Sears yesterday was travelling to the area

where the Indonesian Navy reported finding metal objects on the

seabed.

[Tamizi Hj Tamby 1]

OMG No wonder the Indonesians went into rampage at Adam Air HQ,demanding the government to shut down Adam Air

Edited January 10, 2007 by Tamizi Hj Tamby

[Edwin P K 0]

Still no news on this? This is really Bermuda Triangle-ish!

[Pieter C. 5]

From Sydney Morning Herald

January 10, 2007

 

Each year 30 million people board budget Indonesian carriers, many of

which have dubious safety records. More than 250 people have been

killed in Indonesian air crashes since 2004.

 

The plane was 400 kilometres off course. The next day it took off

without approval and before it could be examined by Indonesia's

National Transport Safety Committee.

 

Naim,

 

Thanks for sharing that interesting Australian news-article; above 2 items 'surprised' me the most...

 

[Seng Lim 0]

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp.../251820/1/.html

 

Indonesian official says part of missing airliner found

 

JAKARTA : Part of the wreckage of a missing Indonesian passenger plane that vanished off radar screens on January 1 has been found at sea, search and rescue officials announced Thursday.

 

The official, Air Marshal Eddy Suyanto, said part of the plane's right tailfin had been found by a fisherman 300 metres (1,000 feet) from shore and identified by the airline, Adam Air.

 

Frans Wenas, one of the investigators, told ElShinta radio: "The thing that was found is part of the tail and it fits the plate number of the plane.

 

"But we have not determined when it was separated from the plane."

 

The Boeing 737 had 96 passengers, including three Americans, and six crew on board when it was reported missing halfway through its flight from Surabaya on Indonesia's central Java island to Manado on Sulawesi island.

 

Search efforts had been focused in recent days on the waters off Sulawesi, with a US Navy ocean survey ship equipped with sonar scanning the seabed after earlier reports of large metal objects several thousand metres down.

 

Canada and Singapore also sent aircraft to join the search, while on land rescuers combed the rugged terrain of Sulawesi island.

 

Suyanto said the piece of debris had been found by the fisherman at 3:00am Thursday (2000 GMT Wednesday) offshore, eight kilometres (five miles) south of the town of Pare Pare.

 

"The search will now focus in the sea," said Bambang Karnohyudo, who heads the Indonesian Search and Rescue service.

 

 

[H Azmal 0]

With part of the plane image:=

 

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4462111.html

[Tamizi Hj Tamby 1]

Finally,the missing part of the ill-fated KI-574 is found!

 

Thank god!! Now it's time for the Indonesians to find any available wreckage parts of that plane.

Edited January 11, 2007 by Tamizi Hj Tamby

[Sandeep G 1]

hmmm... 300m from shore.. no floating debris... chances are it's buried deep in the jungle ravines of Sulawesi... surely they would have recorded some sort of "seismic" activity when the plane hit the ground... if water, I'm sure there would be some seismic recordings albeit less and accompanied with floating debris which is a tell-tale sign of water crashes....

 

Anyone else thinking "Lost" here?

[Sandeep G 1]

Hmm,you're right,Sandeep.But who knows,maybe the sea condition on that time was quite bad,causing the floating debris washed away by the sea.

 

 

With all the activities around Indonesian waters and aerial sureys of the area to try and locate the plane, some floating debris should have been spotted... collections would have even washed up on shore by now, especially if the aircraft crashed only 300m from the shoreline...

[Naim 6]

Yes, they have found it, near Pare-pare (see my map below).

 

 

Last Updated: Thursday, 11 January 2007, 04:02 GMT

BBC

 

Indonesia jet section discovered

 

Two officials hold up the section of the missing plane

The piece of the missing plane was found just 300m from the shore

 

A section of a missing Indonesian plane has been discovered by a fisherman just off the west coast of Sulawesi island, search officials have said.

 

A piece of the Adam Air Boeing 737's tailfin was discovered in the Makassar Strait.

 

None of plane's 102 passengers or crew have been found since it disappeared halfway through its flight from Java.

 

A search and rescue official said the serial number on the tail section matched that of the missing plane.

 

Seabed scans

 

"This morning I announced that there has been a finding of a part of Adam Air. What was found was the right tail's stabiliser, number 65C25746-76," the head of the search and rescue mission, Eddy Suyanto, told reporters.

 

Map of Indonesia

 

Mr Suyanto said the fragment of the plane was found by a fisherman at 0300 local time on Thursday (2000 GMT Wednesday).

 

The tailfin section was found some 300m (985 ft) from the shore, near Pare Pare, a seaside town north of Makassar, capital of South Sulawesi province, Mr Suyanto said.

 

The news was greeted with relief by relatives desperate for news of their loved ones on the plane.

 

"I cried when I heard, but now I'm relieved," said Rosmala Dewi, whose daughter was a stewardess on the flight.

 

"At the very least we now have a sign [of where the plane landed]," she told the Associated Press.

 

The plane disappeared more than 10 days ago, after battling strong winds and twice changing course during the flight.

 

A massive air, land and sea operation has been under way ever since, with several other countries offering help with the search.

 

Bad weather has hampered the hunt, as have false leads. Government officials had to apologise soon after the plane's disappearance for erroneously saying that the wreckage had been found.

 

Since Monday, the search effort focused off the coast of western Sulawesi, on the advice of another local fisherman, who reported seen a low-flying, unstable plane in the area.

 

A US Navy ocean ship equipped with sonar was employed to scan the seabed for clues.

Edited January 11, 2007 by Naim

[Teoh Z Yao 0]

This is strange and mysterious... Doesn't it sound like a movie... Are we reading synopsis of a movie here...??

[Sim Lim Shen 0]

At least, something physical was found. Naim, on your map, you have 2 "X" (Mamuju and ...). Were those the places the majority of search and rescue operations were carried out?

[Tamizi Hj Tamby 1]

With the parts of the ill-fated aircraft found,at least the family members and cabin crews are relieved.Although their bodies will never recovered,but discovery of the tailfin is an major achievement.

[Pieter C. 5]

Indonesian Airliner Wreckage Found

 

January 11, 2007

Indonesian Airliner Wreckage Found

 

Pieces of an Indonesian airliner that vanished with 102 people on board have been found strewn in the ocean, officials said on Thursday, after a painstaking 10 day search from jungles to stormy seas.

 

The biggest part, found by a fisherman, appeared to be a tail stabilizer, while shreds of a wing, a life vest and seat tables were also recovered by residents, military and police in the sea and on beaches near the town of Pare Pare on the west coast of Sulawesi island, an official heading the search said.

 

The identity of a woman whose body was recovered in the vicinity was still being investigated, Eddy Suyanto also said.

 

Exhausted relatives expressed relief that they finally had firm news on the plane, even if the news was not good, after a long wait and an erroneous report that the airliner had crashed in the jungle and some people had survived.

 

"I still hope that they are found alive but I have to accept all kind of conditions," Lusy Kembuan told Metro TV. She had 17 relatives on the plane, including her husband and children.

 

The Adam Air Boeing 737-400 was heading from Surabaya in East Java to Manado in northern Sulawesi when it disappeared in bad weather on New Year's Day. The plane made no distress call, although the pilot had reported concerns over the weather.

 

Suyanto, who has been coordinating search efforts from an air base in the South Sulawesi capital, Makassar, said the hunt aided by soldiers had focused on Pare Pare and its surroundings.

 

"Ten pieces have been found clearly to belong to the Adam Air plane. Five table boards, two shreds of the wings and the rest from interior covers and other small pieces," he told a news conference.

 

Earlier, officials had displayed the slightly scratched white stabilizer of about 1 metre (3 ft) in length found on Wednesday.

 

Two flight attendant seats were also found on a beach on Thursday in the same general area, search and rescue official Immal Yuhani said.

 

Genot Hardianto, the chief of police at Pare Pare, about 100 km north of Makassar, also said that an ID card, a flare and a headrest had been found.

 

Suyanto said Indonesian navy ships and aircraft were also searching the Makassar Strait, focusing on an area off the town of Majene, where a ship had detected metal objects.

 

Asked if there was an initial assumption that the jet crashed into the sea off Majene, he said: "Yes, but I cannot make any conclusion."

 

He added he believed the plane disintegrated into small pieces, but declined to say whether this could have happened before or after crashing into the sea.

 

Wahyu Supriantono, the chief of the Indonesian Plane Technicians group, said the plane appeared likely to have crashed into the sea because if a mid-air explosion had occurred fragments would have been spread in a wider area and found earlier.

 

In a Makassar hotel where relatives of the Adam Air passengers have been staying, Rosmala Dewi, mother of a flight attendant on the plane, told reporters:

 

"I feel a bit relieved if it is true that the search team has found that piece. We have waited so long, and we have received so many confusing reports. We do not know whether to go home or stay here forever."

 

Pare Pare is about 150 km south of Mamuju in west Sulawesi, which had been the main focus of the search since Monday when Indonesian ships detected large metal objects on the sea bed.

 

The plane vanished less than three days after a ferry with more than 600 aboard capsized and sank off Java. Survivors of that accident were still being found nine days later hundreds of kilometres away, indicating the power of ocean currents in parts of Indonesian waters.

 

(Reuters)

 

[Edwin Yii 0]

An Interesting article .. hav a read..

 

pprune adam air issues

 

 

Highlights

 

Last week, the aircraft was heard radio-ing Fatmawati Tower (Bengkulu airport) asking if a pushback truck was available at the airport. The airport had no pushback trucks, so the crew asked "which runway direction would give (him) the longest distance to the taxiway intersection (next to the apron). A witness then photographed why the aircraft asked for the information, it lost its HYD A pressure resulting in no nosewheel steering.

 

 

Disembarking and pushback as mentioned by the OP -- but not as we know it.

Edited January 13, 2007 by Edwin Yii