Three Countries Asked to Help Recover Adam Air Plane
Tuesday, 30 January, 2007 | 13:03 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Makassar: The government is still struggling to recover the Adam Air plane or its black boxes from a depth of 2,000 meter in Majene waters, South Sulawesi.

“If necessary, we will lift it all,” said Transportation Minister Hatta Rajasa after a coordination meeting on Adam Air in Makassar yesterday (29/1).

The meeting was also attended by Adam Air Managing Director, Adam Aditya Suherman; Head of the National Committee of Transportation Safety (KNKT), Setio Rahardjo; Commander of Hasanuddin Airbase, First Marshal Eddy Suyanto and Commander of the Indonesian Military (TNI) Navy Makassar Main base, Commander Gatot Subijanto.

However, the effort of recovering the plane’s fuselage seems to be hampered by technological problems.

“The problems are whether there is the technology available. So far we haven’t had the answer because there haven’t been any recoveries from a depth of 2,000 meters,” said Hatta.

Based on the results of this meeting, Hatta said that the KNKT will look for the technology.

Provisionally they will discuss this matter with the United States’ National Transport Safety Board.

“So far there have already been three countries which are being contacted, the US, France and Japan,” said Hatta at Hasanuddin Airbase HQ.

The meeting also concluded that the search for the Adam Air plane on the Surabaya-Manado route which went missing on January 1 has not been halted.

The search for the plane debris including the passengers is still being carried out by the Search & Rescue Team.

Now the search has entered the second phase, the recovery efforts of the black boxes and the plane debris, which will be performed if there is the technology which can recover the pieces.

The search process this month has involved at least 4,000 personnel, from 923 from the Indonesian Army, 664 from the Navy, 715 from the police, 512 from the National SAR Agency, plus 22 people from the Singapore Airforce, the United States or the Mary Sears team and non-governmental organizations, the SAR, regional governments and members of the general public.

The expenditure totals between Rp1.7 billion to Rp2 billion a week and so far has amounted to about Rp8 billion.

As regards recovery costs, Adam Aditya acknowledged his company had not allocated these.

IRMAWATI