Indonesian authorities yesterday deployed ships and aircraft to resume searching for a passenger plane that went missing Monday with 102 people onboard, after confirmation that initial reports of finding the wreckage turned out to be false.

 

The navy was involved in the search due to the possibility of the Adam Air-owned Boeing 737-400 crashed into to the sea.

 

Three Cassa planes were deployed to comb the coastal areas along Sulawesi Island where the ill-fated plane last made contact with airport controllers, said a spokesman with the naval base in East Java.

 

"There is a possibility that the plane had crashed into the sea," said Lt. Col. Toni Syaiful.

 

From the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar, the Air Force dispatched a Boeing 737-200 equipped with radar and tracking equipment to search above the coastal areas.

 

The Adam Air plane was on its two-hour journey from Surabaya in East Java to Manado in North Sulawesi when it disappeared from the radar screen.

 

Authorities announced Tuesday morning the wreckage of the plane was found in the mountainous area in West Sulawesi, with 90 people killed and 12 survivors.

 

In the evening, an understandably bashful Minister of Transportation Hatta Rajasa admitted that the stories of the wreckage and the survivors were incorrect.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 4, 2007)