No Success in Searching for Missing Indonesian Plane's Body
Jan. 13, 2007
The massive search and rescue (SAR) efforts initiated since the disappearance of Indonesia's Adam Air passenger plane on Jan. 1 have not got any result in the location of the aircraft's body, the SAR Mission's coordinator, Air Commodore Eddy Suyanto, said on January 13.
So far the search teams have collected up to 153 objects associated with aircraft from waters off Pare Pare, Barru and Pangkep districts in South Sulawesi province, the Air Commodore said.
The plane was on a flight from Surabaya in East Java to Manado in North Sulawesi with 102 people on board when it went missing.
"Up till today, SAR teams have collected 68 pieces of aircraft debris," Antara news agency quoted Suyanto as saying at Hassanuddin Air Force base in Makassar, capital of South Sulawesi province.
Out of all the fragments, only 40 had been confirmed as belonging to the missing Adam Air plane, it added.
Military and police personnel had been deployed to help find the body of the plane. Some naval vessels and air force planes were also involved in the search efforts.
So far they had not been able to locate the body of the plane nor had they succeeded in finding any positive clue on its whereabouts.
Meanwhile, the head of the National SAR Agency (Basarnas), Bambang Karnoyudho, said he could not tell what might have caused the plane to go missing.
The National Commission for Transportation Safety (KNKT) was now still studying the plane fragments recovered so far.