Indonesia insists plane wreck still not found

INDONESIA’S transportation minister yesterday said rescuers had not found the wreckage of a missing passenger jetliner, despite earlier statements from aviation and police officials that it had been located.

The Adam Air Boeing 737 carrying 102 people sent out two distress signals in stormy weather on Monday. Flight KI-574 was about halfway through its two-hour journey from Indonesia’s main island of Java to Manado, on the northern tip of Sulawesi, one of the largest islands in the sprawling archipelago.

Three of those aboard were American citizens, the US Embassy said. A US transportation safety board team was to arrive on Friday to offer assistance.

“The search and rescue team is still looking for the location,” Transport Minister Hatta Radjasa told El-Shinta radio, insisting that earlier statements that the wreckage had been located were based on rumours from villagers that were passed on to local officials.

Police chief Genot Hariyanto had earlier said rescue teams arrived at the crash site on Sulawesi’s western coast early yesterday and found the plane wreckage and scores of bodies.

Setyo Raharjo, head of the National Commission on Transportation Safety, also said searchers had found 90 bodies at the scene and the search for the other 12 was continuing. Other senior aviation officials also later retreated from the reports that the wreckage had been found.Air force Rear Commander Eddy Suyanto was one of numerous officials who had said the plane crashed in a mountainous region in Polewali, west Sulawesi province, but he acknowledged the error later last night.

“We apologise for the news that we released earlier,” he said. “It was not true.”

2006 crashes: 1,292 killed

THE number of air crashes around the world in 2006 was the lowest in 53 years, making it one of the safest in aviation history, an independent watchdog said in Switzerland yesterday.

Last year saw 156 crashes, compared with 178 in 2005, the Aircraft Crashes Record Office said in a statement.

The Geneva-based organisation said 1,292 people died in plane crashes in 2006 — a drop of 11% on the previous year.

According to the International Civil Aviation Organisation, air travel increased by 4% in 2006 to about 2.1 billion passengers.

Almost a third of all crashes last year occurred in North America, with 45 accidents in the United States alone, ACRO said.

The deadliest accident was the downing of a Tupolev TU-154 in Ukraine in August, in which 170 people lost their lives.