U.S. offers under-sea photography to locate missing plane

SURABAYA (Antara): The U.S. has offered to use under-sea photography to help find the missing Adam Air plane which could have plunged into the sea in the Makassar Strait, an Indonesian Navy official said.

"The under-sea photographic equipment is scheduled to arrive on Wednesday," Rear Admiral Moekhlas Sidik, chief of the Indonesian Navy's Eastern Fleet Command, told Antara on Saturday.

He said the Search and Rescue Team including the naval vessel KRI Fatahillah was still focusing its attention on an area where fragments of aircraft parts and equipment were found recently.

Until now, the team had still not found the body of the missing plane.

Until Friday, as many as 27 objects associated with aircraft parts and equipment had been found during search operations in waters off Pare Pare and Barru districts in South Sulawesi.

The team was hoping that if the body of the plane was found it could get the aircraft's black box containing information on what had happened with the plane.

The U.S. has been keen to help in the search efforts because three of the plane's 96 passengers were Americans, namely Scott Jackson and his two daughters, Lindsey and Stephanie.