US ship combs seabed for missing plane

0 Comments | AFP, January, 2007

ON BOARD KRI FATAHILLAH, Indonesia (AFP) — A US Navy ocean survey ship has scanned the waters off an Indonesian island where investigators believe metal objects detected on the seabed could be wreckage from a missing passenger plane. The large objects were detected by sonar at a depth of around 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) in the sea off Sulawesi, where search and rescue teams have been hunting for traces of the Adam Air jet carrying 96 passengers, including three Americans, and six crew.

The plane vanished from radar screens on New Year's Day, halfway through a flight from the central island of Java to Sulawesi island in the northeast. The US Navy oceanographic survey ship Mary Sears and the Indonesian navy's KRI Fatahillah were the only two vessels now searching off Mamuju in...