Confusion over missing Java plane
Relatives of passengers on the plane, at Surabaya airport 2/1/07
Anxious relatives have been waiting at airports for news
Indonesia's transport minister has denied reports that the wreckage of a plane carrying 102 people from Java had been found on Sulawesi island.

Hatta Radjasa said the plane had not been found and reports to the contrary were based on rumours from local villagers which were wrong.

Rescuers and airline officials were earlier quoted as saying they had seen bodies at the crash site.

The confusion is adding to the distress of relatives of those on board.

Hatta Radjasa told local radio that search teams were still looking for the plane, a 17-year-old Boeing 737-400.

"It's not true that the crash location has been found," he said, an hour after talking about the difficulties search teams faced in reaching what was then thought to be the crash site.

First Air Marshal Eddy Suyanto, commander of the air base in Makassar, close to where the plane was originally reported to have come down, also contradicted his earlier statement that wreckage had been found.

"The location has not been found. We apologise that the news that we conveyed was not true," he was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

Another regional commander, Major General Arif Budi Santoso, told Metro TV that no wreckage had been found at the supposed crash site.

"News from the village head reporting 12 survivors was also not true, the village head said that he never made that report," he said.

Heavy rains

The Adam Air plane went missing en route from Surabaya in Java on a two-hour flight to Manado in northern Sulawesi on Monday.

Map of Indonesia

According to the earlier reports, the plane's debris was believed to have been found in remote terrain near the town of Polewali in western Sulawesi.

The reports said rescue and search teams hiked through heavy rain for hours to reach the wreckage of the Boeing 737.

A number of local officials confirmed 90 bodies had been found, and described debris scattered across a wide area.

The confusion and lack of information has been fuelling anger among the families of those onboard, the BBC's Lucy Williamson in Jakarta says.

Dozens had gathered at airports on Java and in northern Sulawesi to wait for flights that would take them nearer to the scene of the crash.

But the airline has said it would not take relatives to the area until it was sure what the casualty figures were.

The plane went missing after sending out two distress calls when it was an hour away from its destination on Monday.

The region has been subjected to high winds and severe storms in the last few days.

About 400 people are still missing after a passenger ship sank off Java on Saturday morning.

Safety record

Adam Air, a privately owned low-cost airline based in Jakarta, started flying in 2003.

It was set up by Agung Laksono, the speaker of Indonesia's house of representatives.

Adam Air is one of at least a dozen budget airlines to begin operations since the industry was deregulated in 1999.

Indonesia has a chequered flight safety record which includes several major crashes.

Last year almost 150 people were killed when a plane crashed into a busy road shortly after taking off from Medan on the island of Sumatra.

Adam Air - The Flying Circus Nightmare .
I have decided to write some of these up based on publicly available information, witnesses and also conversations with current and former Adam Air personnell, and many of whom wished this information to be known public but without fear of reprisals to their livelihoods, their lives, and also mine.

Does management understand the real meaning of the word "safety" ?.................................
...........................................
Here's the Indonesian way of travel...
Go the cheapest way... if it crashes or you face a problem... then start throwing tantrums not for justice but for a thick envelope filled with cash in exchange for your silence..................................
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It's not ALL that bad, however, don't be surprised when you get the worst of it!

Then to add to the awful situation the "Daily Record" comes out with this story..which is a rather controversial to say the least.
100 DIE AS BOEING JET RUNS OUT OF FUEL AT 35,000FT.

Aircraft from Singapore on Thursday joined Indonesia's search for a Boeing 737 that disappeared in bad weather with 102 people aboard four days ago.

Military and civilian aircraft have been scouring the jungles and rugged mountains of western Sulawesi while navy ships combed the Makassar Strait between the islands of Sulawesi and Borneo.

But heavy rains and strong winds have hampered the search and the rough terrain has made communication and transport difficult.

Government officials have apologized for erroneously saying on Tuesday that the 17-year-old Boeing 737-400, operated by budget carrier Adam Air, had been found and 12 people survived.

The missing plane was carrying 96 passengers and six crew. A copy of its manifest showed three passengers as non-Indonesians. The US embassy in Jakarta said they were Americans.

Portland's Oregonian newspaper identified the three as wood-products executive Scott Jackson, 54, and daughters Stephanie, 21, and Lindsey, 18.

Two Singaporean Fokker-50s have joined Indonesian military aircraft in the search, while three ships have joined the effort and another is on they way, First Air Marshal Eddy Suyanto, commander of the airbase in Makassar said.

The United States was also offering unspecified aid.

The search coverage is based on distress signals picked up by Singapore on Monday from the doomed plane.

Ikhsan Tatang, director general of aviation at Indonesia's transport ministry, said the world's fourth most populous country lacked tools to receive such signals from flights covering its vast territory, which is as wide as the United States.

"Not all countries need to have a special satellite to catch such signals. We don't need it because we have international cooperation," he said, adding Indonesia lacked money for that.

Officials said the mistaken information about the crash site and survivors came from accounts from a village that police then relayed to government agencies. The circulation of the report drew strong criticism from politicians and passengers' relatives.

The confusion over the plane highlighted the logistical difficulties of dealing with disasters, from quakes and volcanoes to floods and forest fires, in an archipelago of 17,000 islands.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered a full investigation into the condition of all commercial planes in Indonesia and what went wrong in the Adam Air case, as well as an evaluation of the nation's transport system.

Teungku Burhanuddin, head of the Indonesian National Air Carrier Association, said evaluation results must be followed up.

"If it is only to be reported, it will be useless. We also need to evaluate the transport ministry. Do they still have the same old people working in that department?," he told Jakarta-based Radio Elshinta.

He added 300,000 commercial flights operate every year in Indonesia so "there is always a small chance for an accident".

"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."

It seems there is still no sight of the Aircraft yet, i`ve come up with one or theories myself, First one is that the A/C is in dense wood land, cant be seen from the Air, or that the A/C has sank in one piece in the ocean (Theory) but could be possible !

Airline hunt spots metal in sea
Indonesian air force members pray for missing airline passengers at Hasanuddin Airport in Makassar, Sulawesi, on 8 January 2007
Prayers have been held for the missing passengers
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.

The piece of the missing plane was found just 300m from the shore
A section of a missing Indonesian plane has been found by fishermen just off the west coast of Sulawesi island, search officials have said.
The section, a piece of a Boeing 737's tail, had a serial number matching the missing Adam Air plane.

Several other parts and items had been washed ashore, local reports said.

None of plane's 102 passengers or crew have been found since it disappeared on 1 January, half way through its flight from Java to Sulawesi.

"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.



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

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

Later reports said a life vest and parts of airline seats had also been found.

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.

Search continues

Mr Suyanto said it was still unclear if the plane had crashed into the sea or exploded mid-air.

"Therefore the search will continue from the air, in the sea and on land, but the focus would be at sea," he said.

The plane disappeared more than 10 days ago, after battling strong winds and twice changing course during a flight from Surabaya in Central Java to Manado in northern Sulawesi.

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 seeing a low-flying, unstable plane in the area.

A US Navy ocean ship equipped with sonar was employed to scan the seabed for clues, off the coast from Mamuju, but that search area is some way north of Parepare.

Indonesian troops combed beaches over the weekend for more debris from a missing Indonesian airliner, an official leading the search said, hoping for more clues to piece together what happened to the jet.

Mostly small parts of the Adam Air Boeing 737-400 that vanished from radar screens on New Year's Day with 102 people aboard were found in the past few days at roughly the same location, floating in the sea or washed up on beaches.

Officials have suggested the plane may have crashed into the sea off the west coast of Sulawesi island, disintegrating into small pieces.

Despite the possibility that the Boeing had broken up, Indonesian navy ships assisted by a US oceanographic ship have been trying to locate its fuselage, which could still house the flight recorder that could provide clues to explain the disaster.

"We want to find the plane's main body and the black box. We know that the Makassar Strait can go as deep as 1,700 metres (5,600 ft) and we need more sophisticated equipment to locate the plane's body," said search mission chief First Air Marshal Eddy Suyanto.

Suyanto told reporters, police and military troops would keep scouring the shore for other items belonging to the doomed plane.

The fisherman who discovered the first piece of the missing Indonesian plane was given on Saturday a cash prize of INR50 million rupiah (USD$5,500) from authorities.

Bakri Hapipah found the plane's tail stabilizer snarled in a fishing net 300 metres (980 ft) from the shore.

"I want to get a bigger fishing boat. A motorized one. I still want to be a fisherman," the 45 year-old told reporters when asked what he wanted to do with the cash. "I hope (the passengers) can be found soon," he added.

He found the one metre long piece on Tuesday but initially stored it under his stilted house because he thought it was only a slab of plywood, before a neighbor persuaded him to report it to the police a day later.

Since then, a life vest, food trays, wing shreds, seat cushions and interior material have also been recovered by residents, military and police in the sea and on the shores around the seaside town of Pare Pare.

But none of them had been as big or as significant as the tail stabilizer which had a distinctive serial number.

The 17-year-old plane was heading from Surabaya in East Java to Manado in northern Sulawesi when it vanished in bad weather on New Year's Day. The plane made no distress call, although the pilot had reported concerns over crosswinds.

JAKARTA - The rise and fall of Adam Air, until recently Indonesia's most popular budget airline, has cast a harsh light on the country's weak regulatory regime and reaffirmed already entrenched foreign-investor perceptions about the private sector's often corrupt and careless business practices.

Former Adam Air pilots have in recent days given a series of press interviews accusing senior management of putting profits before safety. Sutan Salahuddin, a former Adam Air pilot who flew 18 months for the airline, last week told the local and international press that on at least two occasions senior management had ignored his objections to flying aircraft that he deemed unsafe.

Feisal Banser, another former Adam Air pilot, said in press interviews that he was grounded for a week by senior management over his refusal to fly after he had exceeded the regulation limiting pilots to five daily takeoffs. "Every time you flew, you had to fight with the ground staff and the management about all the regulations you had to violate," Banser was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

Both Salahuddin and Banser have also claimed in recent interviews that spare parts were recycled from other aircraft to save costs, that pilots were put under pressure to break international safety regulations, and that the company bribed aviation officials to look the other way. Notably, the former pilots' allegations do not come out of the blue.

George Stelios, owner of the United Kingdom's highly successful budget carrier EasyJet, a role model for many of Asia's budding low-cost airlines, once said: "If you think safety's expensive, try an accident. One accident can actually destroy an airline." Unfortunately for Indonesia, the impact from Adam Air's crash could be significantly more than just the downfall of one airline.

Indonesia jet 'black boxes' found
Two officials hold up the section of the missing plane
Parts of the plane have been found
A US ship has located the "black box" flight recorders of the Indonesian plane that went missing on 1 January, the US embassy said.

The USNS Mary Sears, which has been helping hunt for the missing Boeing 737, detected a distinctive signal from the boxes on the ocean floor.

The Adam Air flight, which went missing halfway through its flight from Java to Sulawesi, had 102 people on board.

Parts of the plane have been washed up off the west coast of Sulawesi.

The Mary Sears located signals "on the same frequency" as the flight recorders of the missing plane, the US embassy in Jakarta said in a statement.

The ship also "detected heavy debris scattered over a wide area", which is being analysed to verify whether it is the missing aircraft, the statement added.


HUNT FOR MISSING JET
1 Jan: Plane goes missing
2 Jan: Reports that wreckage has been found prove false
3 Jan: Search resumes
5 Jan: Search area is expanded
8 Jan: Metal spotted in sea
10 Jan: US ship joins search
11 Jan: Fishermen find debris
25 Jan: Flight recorders found

Indonesia's transport perils

Information from the flight recorders could help investigators determine the cause of the crash.

Officials said the government would now have to decide whether to try and retrieve the boxes from the ocean bed.

"We do not have the technology to retrieve the black boxes," Setio Rahardjo, chairman of the National Commission on Transport Safety told AFP news agency.

"Assuming we have the funds, then we have to ask for a country who has sophisticated technology, such as the US," he added.

Meanwhile, the search has entered the fourth week in the Java Sea for a ferry which sank at the end of December - about 300 passengers are still missing.

Falling skies for Indonesian aviation
Full story, 2 pages :
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/IA24Ae01.html

But we just had several videos from Johannesburg uploaded to this site, and they all show African airlines taking off and landing safely.

South Africa's transportation infrastructure is among the best in Africa, supporting both domestic and regional needs. The OR Tambo Airport(formerly Johannesburg int.airport) serves as a hub for flights to other Southern African and International countries. South Africa also has several major ports that make it a central point for most trade in the southern African region.

South Africa stands for the African continent as USA stands for the American continent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_South_Africa