Fears grow for missing Indonesian plane

An Indonesian passenger plane carrying 102 people disappeared in stormy weather today, and rescue teams were sent to search an area where military aviation officials feared the Boeing 737-400 aircraft may have crashed.

Transport Minister Hatta Radjasa said a radio communication was picked up over central Sulawesi, a major island in the Indonesian archipelago about 750 kilometres from the Adam Air flight’s destination. He said emergency crews were on their way to search for survivors.

“Let’s hope the plane had an emergency landing,” he told El-Shinta radio.

It was not known if the aircraft disappeared over sea or land, but the navy was contacted about a possible sea-rescue operation.

Eddy Suyanto, military airport chief in South Sulawesi, said the final transmissions indicated “a big chance it had an accident or a crash”.

Search parties comprising an airplane and five helicopters would set out to two possible locations at dawn tomorrow, he said.

Air traffic controllers lost contact with flight KI-574 while it was flying at 35,000 feet from Indonesia’s main island of Java to Sulawesi. It was still missing more than eight hours after its scheduled arrival.

The 17-year-old plane, on a two-hour flight from East Java to Manado, on Sulawesi’s northern tip, carried six crew and 96 passengers, including 11 children.

National aviation chief Ichsan Tatang refused to speculate about the cause of the incident because the plane was in good condition, but stressed that it was flying in “very bad weather”.

In the north Sulawesi capital Manado, hundreds of people gathered at the airport seeking information about their missing relatives.

Justin Tumurang, 25, was waiting at the airport to pick up her twin sister, but she never arrived.

“Being a twin, we share almost every feeling. I felt something was not right and it grew worse. Now I feel pain,” she said.

Several navy officers were also believed to have been on board.

Weeks of seasonal rains and high winds in Indonesia have caused several deadly floods, landslides and maritime accidents, including the sinking of a ferry in the Java Sea on Friday that left dozens dead and some 400 still missing.

That accident was hundreds of kilometres from the area where the Adam Air plane is believed to have gone down.

An Indonesian air traffic controller, Bhabr, told Metro TV the plane hit “very bad” weather and may have run out of fuel because, if still airborne, it would be “over its (fuel) limit”.

“This is an emergency,” Bhabr, who like many Indonesians uses one name, told the broadcaster.

Adam Air, a privately-owned low-cost airline, began operations in Indonesia several years ago and most of its flights are domestic.

Last year, one of its jetliners lost all communication and navigation systems for four hours during a flight between the Indonesian capital Jakarta and Makassar on Sulawesi island, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing.