Indonesia Plane Is Missing; 102 on Board

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Rescue teams were dispatched after a commercial Adam Air passenger plane with more than 100 people onboard sent out a distress signal while flying in bad weather in Indonesia, the transport minister said Monday.

Hatta Radjasa said a radio communication was picked up over central Sulawesi and that emergency crews were on their way to search for survivors.

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

Air traffic controllers lost contact with flight KI-574 while it was flying at 35,000 feet between Indonesia’s Java and Sulawesi islands. It was still missing more than six hours after the scheduled arrival time.

Adam Air’s chief executive, Gunawan Suherman, confirmed to The Associated Press that controllers lost contact with the aircraft hours earlier.

The plane was a Boeing 737-400 carrying six crew and 96 passengers, including 11 children, Indonesia’s El-Shinta radio reported.

It left Surabaya in East Java at 1:00 p.m. local time (0600 GMT) on a two-hour flight to Manado on the northern tip of Sulawesi island, Tatang said.

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.

It’s last contact with flight controllers was at 2:07 p.m. (0707 GMT) near southern Sulawesi, Tatang said, adding that it only had enough fuel for a four-hour flight.

Airport spokesman Herman Moningka said the Navy had been contacted about possibly sending search teams out to sea.

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.

The transport minister said at the time he would investigate.