Adam Air 737 Likely Spiraled into Sea
A Boeing 737 jetliner with 102 people onboard probably went into a spiral at cruising altitude and plunged into the sea, a top transport safety official said Tuesday, deeming a mid-flight explosion unlikely.
Setyo Rahardjo, chief of the National Transportation Safety Board, said there was only a small chance the plane blew up because search and rescue teams had not found burnt wreckage or human remains since New Year's Day, when the Adam Air plane went missing.
"We have only found little pieces of aircraft which indicates the main body of the aircraft is at the bottom of the sea," Rahardjo told The Associated Press. "Until now no human bodies have been found."
The explosion option has been dropped from a list of three crash scenarios which still include the possibility that the plane suffered a catastrophic structural failure and broke apart at 35,000 feet (more than 10 kilometers), or was damaged in severe weather.
It was the first public speculation by aviation authorities on the cause of the accident in northeastern Indonesia after the plane encountered 130 kph (80 mph) winds and went off the radar without issuing a mayday.
The main priority for search teams is now recovering the black box to reveal flight data on its last moments in the air that could help piece together what went wrong, Rahardjo said.
"It is very difficult to find the cause with so little information and so few parts of the aircraft having been found," he said.
A US navy ship plans to start trawling the waters off Sulawesi Island with equipment designed to pick up the signal soon. Singapore has also contributed four sets of detectors to help in the hunt, which is being hampered by ocean depths of more than 1 1/2 kilometers.
They have so far picked up no signals from the recorder.
No trace of the plane was found until early last week, when a fisherman pulled a section of the plane's tail from waters 300 meters (yards) off shore. Since then, food trays, life vests, pieces of tire and fuselage also have been found.
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