The United States and Singapore have assisted Indonesia in searching a passenger plane which went missing on Monday with 102 people on board, Indonesian Transport Minister Hatta Rajasa said on Thursday.

 

The Singaporean government has sent an aircraft equipped with sophisticated technology for searching and the U.S. government, whose three citizens were on board the ill-fated plane, has helped search with remote sensing by satellite, said Rajasa.

 

"A Singaporean F50 airplane has conducted searching, and the U. S. remote sensing by satellite has also begun, but (they) still have no result yet," he told reporters after meeting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the State Palace here.

 

The searching of the Boeing 737-400 commercial plane operated by Indonesia's Adam Air Corp., has conducted through air, land and sea waters and involved Indonesian air force, navy, police and rescue team since it went missing on Monday.

 

"We deploy four aircrafts today. Navy ship with surveillance equipment today begun to move to the waters of Makassar," he said.

 

"The Baruna Jaya ship that has capacity to detect up to more than 1,000 meters below the sea surface is deployed today," said Hatta.

 

The operation for the searching of the location of the plane include on the ground, on Polewali of West Sulawesi island but the radius is extended to Tator regency of West Sulawesi province and Mamuju regency of South Sulawesi province, and in the waters of Majene of the island, Hatta said.

 

During the meeting, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has instructed to conduct a whole evaluation on the country's aviation to beef up safety.

 

"We need to tighten surveillance of the implementation of rules for safety," said Hatta.

 

The Boeing 737 plane was on route of Java island to Sulawesi when it disappeared late Monday about an hour before it was due to land amid very bad weather, the company's officials said.

 

Indonesian authorities have defused speculation that the plane was found on Tuesday.

 

Adam Air is one of more than dozens budget airline companies that have established in the country since 1999.

 

The strong competition has led to cheap price with suspicious on the safety standard.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 4, 2007)