An Indonesian Air Force surveillance plane was forced to stop the search of a missing passenger plane Wednesday amid heavy rains and windstorm above Sulawesi island and made an unscheduled landing in East Kalimantan.

 

The plane was sent to search for a Boeing 737-400 believed to have crashed Monday with 102 people onboard.

 

"The surveillance plane was forced to halt the search due to bad weather," Air Force spokesman First Marshal Daryatmo was quoted by the national Antara news agency as saying.

 

"We will resume the search immediately when the weather is conducive."

 

Bad weather also forced a small airplane owned by Merpati Nusantara Airlines to return to Mutiara airport in the Central Sulawesi capital of Palu after flying for three hours.

 

The plane carrying 18 passengers was heading to the nearby provincial town of Luwuk before bad weather halted the plane.

 

Meanwhile, authorities of seaports in Bali and West Nusa Tenggara provinces agreed to stop the operations of all ships from and to the two seaports on Wednesday because of high waves along shipping routes.

 

"The delay was made based on an agreement between seaport administrator, ferry owners, and ship captains," Head of Bali's Padangbai seaport administration I Made Sudiarta said.

 

He said the last ship departed the Bali seaport at 10 p.m. on Tuesday. He said his office was making a regular contact with the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) to know the latest condition of weather.

 

Authority of Bakauheni Seaport in Lampung province said that the seaport administration has also stopped operating high-speed ships serving shuttle routes between Java and Sumatra islands.

 

"Although the wind is not too fast today (Wednesday), we have not operated any high speed ship," Operational Manager of Bakauheni Seaport Dadang Wijanarko said.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 4, 2007)