Indonesia delays plane memorial

2007-01-30 17:03

Jakarta - Officials on Tuesday postponed a commemorative ceremony for the 102 people on board an Indonesian airliner which vanished on New Year's Day after relatives said they had not abandoned all hope.

A US navy ocean survey ship last week found the black box flight recorders from the Adam Air Boeing 737-400 on the ocean floor off the west of Sulawesi island at a depth of around 2 000 metres.

Officials had planned to take relatives of the 96 passengers and six crew out on a ship on Tuesday to lay flowers on the sea above where debris believed to be from the plane has been found.

"We all think it is still too difficult for us. We are not yet ready," Titus Wemmy, who had relatives on board, told AFP by telephone from Makassar in South Sulawesi where the search and rescue operation has been co-ordinated.

He said many relatives of those on board the plane still had doubts that the debris found on the ocean floor really was from the aircraft.

"We are not yet feeling really sure as long as no one has the black box or larger parts of the planes," he said.

A section of tailfin found by a fisherman is the largest piece of the Adam Air plane found so far. Dozens of fragments and other debris such as tray tables have been washed up on beaches or plucked from the sea, but no larger wreckage or bodies have been retrieved.

The airline and the search and rescue agency were now proposing to take the relatives out to conduct a ceremony at the site on Friday, Wemmy said.

Transport minister Hatta Rajasa on Monday said Indonesia did not have the technology to retrieve objects from such a great depth and was looking to the United States, France or Japan for help in recovering the black boxes.

- AFP