Rescuers rush to locate missing jetliner in Indonesia with 102 on board
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Indonesia's military resumed its search today for a missing passenger jet carrying 102 people, including three Americans from Oregon. The air, sea and land search continued as stormy weather cleared for the first time in days.
Air force planes took to the skies, looking for signs of the Boeing 737-400. The Adam Air jetliner disappeared Monday on a flight from Indonesia's main island of Java to north Sulawesi's provincial capital of Manado.
Americans Scott Jackson, age 54, and his daughters, 21-year-old Stephanie Jackson and 18-year-old Lindsey Jackson were among the plane's 96 passengers. There were six crew members.
The Jackson sisters are students at the University of Oregon. Their father Scott Jackson is president director of P.T. Fendi Mungil, an Indonesian company that makes furniture. He lives part time in Bend, Oregon, Indonesia and Brazil.
The sisters' mother and Scott Jackson's ex-wife, Felice Jackson DuBois, said that the U.S. Embassy advised her to cancel plans to fly with her sons to Surabaya in eastern Java to track the search.
Greg Jackson, 20, was with his sisters on the winter break trip but returned last week. Another brother, Brian Jackson, 18, is Lindsey's twin.
Searchers focused today's efforts on Sulawesi, said Shannon Quinn, assistant press attaché with the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital.
"It does appear, from reports we're getting from the Indonesian search and rescue teams, that the plane has come down over land," Quinn said. "There has been no sign of fuel in the water."
Flying in stormy weather, the aircraft disappeared after sending two distress signals, the first over forested mountains and the second along the coast. Those signals were the last traces of the jet, forcing officials to speculate that the plane's emergency locator beacon may have been damaged in a crash.
"Until now, we have not yet found any signal or indication of where the ill-fated plane crashed," Gen. Eddy Suyanto, the Indonesian air force's search mission coordinator, told news media. Suyanto said that wind, rain and clouds which had been forecast probably would halt the air mission later today.
The government of Singapore is joining the search. A team from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board was to arrive Friday as well.
The search has been hampered by misinformation as well as weather. On Monday, officials from the government and Adam Air declared that burning wreckage of the jet had been found along with a dozen survivors.
Rescuers climbed steep, slippery trails in the western Sulawesi jungle but found nothing. The government later retracted the report, blaming the mistake on rumors from villagers.
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