INDONESIA: Relatives mourn victims of plane crash in Indonesia's Sulawesi island

Twelve people survived when a plane carrying 102 people on board crashed in heavy rain into the mountains of Indonesia's Sulawesi island, officials said after an overnight search for the wreckage of the budget airline jet. Ninety people were killed in the Adam Air crash, the second transport disaster this week in the sprawling archipelago. Relatives mourning the victims, on Tuesday (January 2), said that Adam Air had neglected them in helping them search for their loved ones. "We found obstacles in Manado, we had to beg to ask them to fly us here (Makassar). Adam Air did not give us any attention so we almost took a Garuda flight. How come Adam Air gave us so little attention?" said Aminah, a relative of the crash victim. An Adam Air official said the survivors were scheduled to be evacuated to Makassar, referring to South Sulawesi's provincial capital located some 1,400 km (870 miles) east of Jakarta. First Air Marshal Eddy Suyanto, commander of Hasanuddin air base in Makassar, told Radio Elshinta an air force plane had spotted the wreckage of the Boeing 737-400. The crash site is a five-hour drive through rough terrain from Polewali. Officials said local villagers have reached the area and rescue teams were on the way. Idin Arifin, team leader from the national search and rescue agency, told Reuters the wreckage was tucked four kilometres away from the edge of a remote hamlet. Setyo Rahardjo, head of Indonesia's national transport safety committee, told Reuters experts also have been sent to find the plane's black box. The plane lost contact with the ground on Monday (January 1), about an hour before it was due to land in Manado in North Sulawesi, the transport ministry said. The flight had taken off from a stopover in Surabaya on Java island and was scheduled to land about two hours later in Manado. One of about a dozen budget airlines in the world's fourth most populous nation, Adam Air operates 19 Boeing 737s. Established in 2002, it serves dozens of domestic routes and also flies to Singapore. The disappearance of the plane came two days after the sinking of an Indonesian ferry, around 400 of whose passengers were still unaccounted for on Monday.

ITN Source | January 2, 2007

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