Not looking good
....this from REUTERS
JAKARTA, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Contact was lost on Monday with an Adam Air passenger plane flying from Surabaya on Java island to Manado on Sulawesi with 96 passengers and six crew on board, a transport ministry official told Elshinta news radio.
Tatang Ikhsan, director general of air transport at the ministry, said the plane was a Boeing 737-400 and the flight originated in Jakarta with a stop in Surabaya.
It left Surabaya at 1 p.m. (0600 GMT) and was scheduled to land just over two hours later in Manado in North Sulawesi.
Contact was lost when the plane was at an altitude of 35,000 feet, about one hour before it was due to land, Ikhsan said.
This from Associated Press:
Associated Press
January 1, 2007
JAKARTA, Indonesia — A commercial Adam Air passenger plane with more than 100 people onboard lost contact with flight controllers Monday on flight between Indonesia's Java and Sulawesi islands, officials said.
Adam Air flight KI-574 was still missing more than five hours after the scheduled arrival time.
A senior Transport Ministry official, Ichsan Tatang, said aviation authorities were gathering information from other flights which "might have picked up the plane's distress signal."
Adam Air's chief executive, Gunawan Suherman, confirmed to The Associated Press that controllers had lost contact with Adam Air flight KI-574.
The plane left Surabaya in East Java at 1 p.m. local time on a two-hour flight to Manado on the northern tip of Sulawesi island, Tatang said.
An Indonesian air traffic controller told Metro TV the plane hit "very bad" weather and may have run out of fuel because, if still airborne, it would be "over its (fuel) limit."
"This is an emergency," Bhabr, who like many Indonesians uses one name, told the broadcaster.
The missing plane is a Boeing 737-400, carrying six crew and 96 passengers, including 11 children, Indonesia's El-Shinta radio reported.
It's last contact with flight controllers was at 2:07 p.m. near southern Sulawesi, Tatang said, adding that it only had enough fuel for a four-hour flight.
Transport Minister Hatta Radjasa confirmed the plane had lost contact, but could provide no more details.
Adam Air, a privately owned low-cost airline, began operations in Indonesia several years ago and most of its flights are domestic.
Last year, one of its jetliners lost all communication and navigation systems for four hours during a flight between the Indonesian capital Jakarta and Makassar on Sulawesi Island forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing.
The transport minister said at the time he would investigate.
From Wikipedia
Adam Air was founded in 2002 by Mr Agung Laksono, a well-known Indonesian businessman and politician, and Mrs Sandra Ang.
The airline was established in 2003 and started operations on 19 December 2003 with 2 Boeing 737 aircraft leased from GE Capital Aviation Services. It is entirely owned by and named after Adam Adhitya Suherman, the Chief Executive of the company (?? inconsistency here with the statement that Adam Air was founded by Mr Agung Laksono and Mrs. Sandra Ang. Do they sell the shares to Adam Adhitya Suherman? or what?).
On 1 January 2007 one of the fleet's 737-400 aircraft, carrying 96 passengers and 6 crew. Flight KI-574 lost contact with air traffic control flying between the islands of Java and Sulawesi in Indonesia.