Mystery deepens over missing plane

MAKASSAR, Indonesia (AP) -- An Indonesian jetliner that vanished with 102 people aboard did not issue distress signals or report any mechanical problems, a top aviation official said Thursday, contradicting earlier reports.

Meanwhile, a fleet of aircraft took to the skies, ships scoured the sea and soldiers battled rugged jungle terrain for the third day, searching a 28,000-square-mile area -- roughly the size of California. But by late afternoon they had seen no sign of the wreckage.

Earlier this week, officials wrongly reported finding the Boeing 737's wreckage and a dozen survivors, causing anguish among the passengers' families. (Watch rescuers search for plane )

"Search efforts have expanded, they're more sophisticated ... but they haven't discovered anything as far as they've told me," the girls' mother, Felice Jackson DuBois of Bend, Ore., told The Associated Press by telephone Wednesday. "It's still a zero at this point."...cont'd

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/01/04/indonesia.plane.ap/index.html

plane. How sad. I heard the pilot's cell phone was called, and it rang but no answer, so someone assumed they're up in the mountains somewhere.

islands scattered around the area...?

It's hard to imagine unless you've seen how a plane can virtually be swallowed by a jungle.

crash? Doesn't this capability exist? It is Indonesia, a hotbed of Islamic Militancy. You'd think....

Satellite imagaging doesn't work in real time. Also the plane went down
in bad weather that is still hampering the search.

If the plane crashed in the jungle, the canopy can restore itself fairly
quickly. The plane just as likely may have crashed into the sea.

Late reports say that searchers are checking out witnesses' reports
of hearing a low flying plane on Monday.

Aren't all air liners equiped with these?

according to this report from the Associated Press:


http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/16377911.htm

Maybe the Dharma Initiative got to them.

since 28,000 square miles is barely larger than West Virginia. The California I learned about occupied approximately 164,000 square miles.

Tragic on top of tragic

just asking.