Piece of missing plane found
Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, January 10, 2007
MAKASSAR, Indonesia – A fisherman found a piece of a Boeing 737 missing since Jan. 1 in northwestern Indonesia, the first hard evidence that the plane carrying 102 people had crashed, a top search official said today.
The piece of the jetliner’s tail was recovered Wednesday from the Makassar Strait off Sulawesi Island, said Eddy Suyanto, the head of search and rescue operations.
Suyanto said the serial number on the tail piece matched the one given to the search and rescue teams by Boeing.
No survivors or bodies have been recovered, Suyanto said.
An Oregon man, Scott Jackson, and his daughters – Stephanie, 21, and Lindsey, 18, both of Bend – were among the passengers. Both daughters attend the University of Oregon. No other Americans were believed to be onboard.
On Wednesday, a U.S. Navy oceanographic survey ship was trying to determine whether large pieces of metal found in a separate discovery off Sulawesi’s western coast were also wreckage from the plane.
An Indonesian vessel recently found the three pieces of debris on the Makassar Strait seabed after local fisherman told authorities they had spotted a low-flying, unstable aircraft in the area but lost sight of it after hearing a loud bang, naval officials said.
The USNS Mary Sears, which has sonar and satellite imagery capabilities, was called in to see if the metal could be the remnants of Adam Air Flight KI-574, which fell off radar in the area during 80 mph winds on New Year’s Day, Suyanto said Wednesday.
The debris was roughly 21/2 miles from the West Sulawesi provincial capital of Mamuju at a depth of about 4,500 feet, he said.
Rear Admiral Moekhlas Sidik, commander of the Eastern Indonesia Fleet, said the Mary Sears had confirmed one of the objects was “round-shaped metal,” but that more readings were needed to identify it.
The pilot of the Adam Air plane, which left Java island for the North Sulawesi provincial capital of Manado on Jan. 1, twice changed course because of rough weather but did not issue a mayday or report technical difficulties, officials said.
