Alan
Do you think De Guzman was on this flight..lol
MAKARTI JAYA, Indonesia (Dec. 20) - Crews battled powerful river currents Sunday to retrieve an Indonesian jetliner's wreckage, strewn across the bottom of a fast-flowing river on Sumatra island.
Divers planned to use a floating crane to recover the mostly intact fuselage, where officials believe most of the 104 people aboard SilkAir Flight MI-185 were still strapped in their seats.
''Everybody is dead. Most of them are still inside the plane,'' said police Sgt. Ganep Nasir.
The Boeing 737-300 crashed into the Musi River on Friday, halfway through a flight from Jakarta to Singapore.
Divers on Saturday groped their way through the opaque water to locate the wreckage. On Sunday morning they prepared to attach crane cables to the main part of the plane. They also were assessing whether to cut open its jammed doors and recover some bodies before the crane attempts its lift.
An attempt to pry open the doors failed on Saturday as divers complained of poor visibility in the dark muddy river, which has swollen to 500 yards wide due to monsoon rains.
Along with the fuselage, officials also hoped to recover the plane's flight data and voice recorders, which could shed light on the cause of the crash.
A twisted piece of orange metal the same color as the missing flight recorders was found Saturday, but investigators would not speculate on what it was.
Two SilkAir flights ferried 200 relatives of the passengers to Palembang, 35 miles south of the crash site, on Saturday.
Dozens of the passengers hired speedboats to watch a flotilla of Indonesian police and navy boats scour a 10-square-mile area of river and swamp for debris and human remains.
The airline said remains recovered so far have been taken to a morgue in a hospital in Palembang.
An Indonesian woman who flew there with her husband from Jakarta said she lost three relatives.
''I can't believe they're dead,'' she said. ''Four days ago, we celebrated my sister-in-law's birthday. And now they are gone.''
Helicopters flying overhead dropped divers into the water. Nearby villagers watched the search from longboats.
Rescuers cast a net over the plane to prevent debris from drifting away. Investigators pored over pieces of the plane's shattered tail and examined items such as clothing and a yellow life jacket for clues to why the plane crashed.
Indonesian Transport Minister Haryanto Dhanutirto refused to comment on reports the plane exploded. Police quoted witnesses as saying the plane exploded twice in the air and again when it hit the water.
Villager Ahmad Hasan said he heard the explosions.
''It came in very low. It was going down. It exploded in the air and then a few seconds later it exploded again when it hit the water,'' he said.
Residents of Makarti Jaya, a village a half-mile from the crash site, said the plane went down at high tide and there were concerns that some bodies were swept away, the official Antara news agency reported. It was not known whether the plane tried to make an emergency landing.
Singapore's Sunday Times reported the plane was traveling at 31,000 feet when it asked Jakarta for permission to switch to Singapore air-traffic control. The paper said the plane received permission but Singapore air traffic controllers never heard from it.
''There were no distress signals. There were no adverse weather conditions. There was no mountainous terrain. It is obviously very puzzling,'' said Mah Bow Tan, Singapore's communications minister.
SilkAir, a division of Singapore Airlines, said the plane was carrying seven crew members and 97 passengers, including 40 Singaporeans, 23 Indonesians, 10 Malaysians, five Americans, and 14 Europeans.
The airline identified the Americans as Richard Dalrymple, Berenice Oey, Jonathan Oey, Susan Picariello and Kathryn Worth. No hometowns were provided. Singapore's The New Paper said Dalrymple's mother lives in San Diego and Worth's employer said the 36-year-old lawyer was born in Fremont, Calif.
The Sunday Times said Dalrymple was an architect in Jakarta. His girlfriend, Bonny Hicks, had written a column for the Times' lifestyle section - already printed before the crash - about the recent death of her grandmother.
''The brevity of life on earth cannot be overemphasized,'' she wrote. ''I cannot take for granted that time is on my side - because it is not. Granny's death has put that sharply into focus.
''I was fortunate to have been able to show her how much I loved her. Now I will show my family, too, how much I love them. Heaven can wait and I cannot.''
The Times said Picariello, 49, had spent nine of her 17 years with American Express in the Asia-Pacific region. She was married with a 2-year-old son.
The airline said the plane's captain was a veteran who had logged 6,900 hours of flying time.
The National Transportation Safety Board sent an investigating team to the crash site, as did Boeing, the airplane's manufacturer.
SilkAir said the plane was 10 months old and was the newest aircraft in its fleet.
The carrier was formed in 1975 as the holiday operator arm of Singapore Airlines.
The crash was the second commercial jetliner disaster on Sumatra in three months. On Sept. 26, an Indonesian-owned Garuda Airbus A-300 crashed into a jungle slope and exploded in north Sumatra, killing all 234 aboard.
The cause is being investigated, but reports indicated there was confusion between the pilot and an air traffic controller. Poor visibility from a smoky haze covering Southeast Asia also may have been a factor. The haze has since dissipated.
AP-NY-12-20-97 2232EST
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