Indonesia beefs up plane search with 2 helicopters

MAKASSAR, Indonesia, Jan 8 (Reuters) Two Indonesian Air Force helicopters will join the search to locate a missing airliner a week after it vanished in bad weather with 102 aboard, a military spokesman said today.

The hunt was focused on the Bone Strait between the two southern arms of Sulawesi island and the onshore areas of western Sulawesi, Captain Mulyadi said in Makassar, the island's largest city, from where search efforts are being coordinated.

The USNS Mary Sears, a U S ship with sonar capability and the ability to detect metal underwater, will arrive tomorrow to join the search, which already included at least four ships, two Indonesian air force planes, two helicopters, and thousands of troops and police on the ground.

The hunt for the 17-year-old Boeing 737-400 operated by Indonesian budget airline Adam Air has been hampered by rain, clouds and wind, with the area's jungle-covered mountains also making it difficult to spot things from the air.

The region lacks roads and communications are often poor.

Over the weekend, passengers's relatives waiting in Makassar for news confronted Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla and called for more to be done.

Kalla told them the government would spare no effort in its search for the plane, but the relatives urged Indonesia to accept more help from abroad.

In addition to the U S ship and an American military plane, foreign aid has included a Singapore Air Force Fokker-50 search plane.

''The United States has extended their help. The foreign ministry will not hesitate in giving permission and clearance for their efforts in helping us,'' Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda told reporters in Jakarta today.

''We are exhausting all of our resources including the latest technology to find the missing plane,'' he added.

Asked by reporters separately how long the search would go on, Transport Minister Hatta Radjasa said: ''The search and rescue team is still working and we don't give a time limit.'' The pilot made no distress call from the plane, which took off from Surabaya on Java island on January 1 for Manado, provincial capital of North Sulawesi.

In his last conversation with Makassar air traffic control, the pilot said he had encountered cross-winds, officials said.

The plane disappeared less than three days after a ferry with more than 600 aboard capsized and sank off Java.

Fourteen survivors of the ferry have been rescued after drifting on a life raft for nine days, a top search and rescue official said today.

''They were found yesterday, 15 of them. One of them died this morning. He had been in critical condition. They were found by a ship called KM Mandiri, and they are now being transported to Makassar,'' Bambang Karnoyudho said.

At least 248 survivors have been found, some clinging to wreckage or floating in life vests, and others on life rafts.

The latest survivors were found about 480 km (300 miles) from the accident site early yesterday morning, according to Karnoyudho, who is head of the national search and rescue agency.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has called for investigations into what went wrong in both cases as well as a general probe into the state of Indonesia's transport system.

The network serves 220 million people in an archipelago of 17,000 islands.

REUTERS AB HT1525