By ZAKKI HAKIM,
Associated Press
An hour after Adam Air Flight KI-574 took off on New Year's Day with 102 passengers and crew for what should have been a short hop between islands, the pilot reported heavy winds. Then, the plane disappeared, seemingly into thin air.
Thousands of soldiers battled rugged jungle terrain, a fleet of aircraft took to the skies, and ships scoured the sea for a third day Thursday in a search of an area roughly the size of California.
By nightfall, there was still no trace of the missing Boeing 737, its six crew members and 96 passengers — including an Oregon man and his two daughters.
"It is kind of strange," said Febrizal Lubis, a pilot for another Indonesian airline. "The plane was going along at 35,000 feet, and then with no mayday or distress signal, it disappeared like that."
The mother of the two missing girls, both students at the University of Oregon, said she is holding out hope.
"There are times that I'm extraordinarily competent in all this and times when I break down," Felice Jackson DuBois told The Oregonian newspaper. "It's one confident foot forward and then one emotional foot forward. We're doing as best we can."
Stephanie Jackson, 21, and Lindsey Jackson, 18, both from Bend, Ore., were visiting their father, Scott Jackson, 54, Felice's former husband and a wood-products industry representative who lives part time in Indonesia. They were reported to be the only Americans aboard.
A top aviation official said the plane, which left Indonesia's main island of Java on Monday for Manado on Sulawesi Island, did not issue distress signals or complain of mechanical problems, contradicting earlier reports.
On Tuesday, authorities wrongly said they found the jet's charred wreckage, and an Adam Air spokesman said there were 12 survivors, causing anguish among families of the plane's passengers, who included 11 children.
Hundreds of relatives have camped out at airports and hotels in Manado, which was supposed to be Flight KI-574's final destination, and Makassar, initially believed to be closer to the crash site.
Many wondered how a Boeing 737 could vanish.
"It's impossible," said Junus Tombokan, 53, who was awaiting news about his nephew. "How could a plane disappear for several days without any clues whatsoever?"
Iksan Tatang, Indonesia's director general of air transportation, said that while the jetliner experienced severe weather halfway through its two-hour flight, there were no complaints from the pilot about navigation or mechanical difficulties.
But he told reporters Thursday that at least two signals from Flight KI-574's emergency beacon — activated on impact or when a plane experiences a sharp, sudden descent — were picked up by another aircraft in the vicinity and by a satellite.
Eddy Suyanto, the head of the search and rescue mission, later put the number of emergency signals at six — saying the last one came over waters just south of Manado.
Because there was no mayday, industry experts and pilots said it is possible the plane experienced a sudden, catastrophic mechanical failure, serious navigational problems, or even an explosion.
But Indonesia's transport minister cautioned against playing guessing games.
"I urge people not to speculate," Hatta Radjasa said. "We must wait until the National Commission for Transportation Safety has located the ill-fated plane."
Adam Air is one of at least a dozen budget carriers that sprang up in Indonesia after 1998, when the industry was deregulated.
The rapid expansion has led to cheap flights to scores of destinations across Indonesia, but has also raised concerns because of reports of poor maintenance of the leased planes.
Professional pilots discussing the plane's disappearance in online chat rooms have alleged that cronyism and political favoritism in Indonesia's aviation industry has undermined public safety.
Air navigation can be difficult in Indonesia, which has been called the world's largest archipelago, because there are gaps in the communications systems. Last year, an Adam Air Boeing 737 flew off course on a stretch of the same route and was lost for several hours before it made an emergency landing at the small Tambalaka airstrip, hundreds of miles from where the plane was supposed to be.
Experts say that until the flight recorder is found or radio transmissions are released, the fate of Flight KI-574 will remain a mystery.
"We know nothing — whether it disintegrated in midair, flew into a storm or there were technical problems," said Nicholas Ionides, managing editor for Flight International Magazine in Asia. "We just don't know." ___
Associated Press
An hour after Adam Air Flight KI-574 took off on New Year's Day with 102 passengers and crew for what should have been a short hop between islands, the pilot reported heavy winds. Then, the plane disappeared, seemingly into thin air.
Thousands of soldiers battled rugged jungle terrain, a fleet of aircraft took to the skies, and ships scoured the sea for a third day Thursday in a search of an area roughly the size of California.
By nightfall, there was still no trace of the missing Boeing 737, its six crew members and 96 passengers — including an Oregon man and his two daughters.
"It is kind of strange," said Febrizal Lubis, a pilot for another Indonesian airline. "The plane was going along at 35,000 feet, and then with no mayday or distress signal, it disappeared like that."
The mother of the two missing girls, both students at the University of Oregon, said she is holding out hope.
"There are times that I'm extraordinarily competent in all this and times when I break down," Felice Jackson DuBois told The Oregonian newspaper. "It's one confident foot forward and then one emotional foot forward. We're doing as best we can."
Stephanie Jackson, 21, and Lindsey Jackson, 18, both from Bend, Ore., were visiting their father, Scott Jackson, 54, Felice's former husband and a wood-products industry representative who lives part time in Indonesia. They were reported to be the only Americans aboard.
A top aviation official said the plane, which left Indonesia's main island of Java on Monday for Manado on Sulawesi Island, did not issue distress signals or complain of mechanical problems, contradicting earlier reports.
On Tuesday, authorities wrongly said they found the jet's charred wreckage, and an Adam Air spokesman said there were 12 survivors, causing anguish among families of the plane's passengers, who included 11 children.
Hundreds of relatives have camped out at airports and hotels in Manado, which was supposed to be Flight KI-574's final destination, and Makassar, initially believed to be closer to the crash site.
Many wondered how a Boeing 737 could vanish.
"It's impossible," said Junus Tombokan, 53, who was awaiting news about his nephew. "How could a plane disappear for several days without any clues whatsoever?"
Iksan Tatang, Indonesia's director general of air transportation, said that while the jetliner experienced severe weather halfway through its two-hour flight, there were no complaints from the pilot about navigation or mechanical difficulties.
But he told reporters Thursday that at least two signals from Flight KI-574's emergency beacon — activated on impact or when a plane experiences a sharp, sudden descent — were picked up by another aircraft in the vicinity and by a satellite.
Eddy Suyanto, the head of the search and rescue mission, later put the number of emergency signals at six — saying the last one came over waters just south of Manado.
Because there was no mayday, industry experts and pilots said it is possible the plane experienced a sudden, catastrophic mechanical failure, serious navigational problems, or even an explosion.
But Indonesia's transport minister cautioned against playing guessing games.
"I urge people not to speculate," Hatta Radjasa said. "We must wait until the National Commission for Transportation Safety has located the ill-fated plane."
Adam Air is one of at least a dozen budget carriers that sprang up in Indonesia after 1998, when the industry was deregulated.
The rapid expansion has led to cheap flights to scores of destinations across Indonesia, but has also raised concerns because of reports of poor maintenance of the leased planes.
Professional pilots discussing the plane's disappearance in online chat rooms have alleged that cronyism and political favoritism in Indonesia's aviation industry has undermined public safety.
Air navigation can be difficult in Indonesia, which has been called the world's largest archipelago, because there are gaps in the communications systems. Last year, an Adam Air Boeing 737 flew off course on a stretch of the same route and was lost for several hours before it made an emergency landing at the small Tambalaka airstrip, hundreds of miles from where the plane was supposed to be.
Experts say that until the flight recorder is found or radio transmissions are released, the fate of Flight KI-574 will remain a mystery.
"We know nothing — whether it disintegrated in midair, flew into a storm or there were technical problems," said Nicholas Ionides, managing editor for Flight International Magazine in Asia. "We just don't know." ___