Indonesian: Rescue team receives signal from plane

By Nicky Aulia Widadio

JAKARTA (AA) - Indonesian Military (TNI) Commander Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto said Sunday a search team received a signal from a Sriwijaya airplane that crashed in Thousand Islands waters a day earlier.

The aircraft search process would focus on the coordinate point where the signal was found, he said.

"According to the results of monitoring, it is strongly suspected that the coordinates came from the last contact of the aircraft," Hadi told reporters.

The TNI dispatched a team of divers to ensure the signal came from the airplane.

The Indonesian warship, Rigel, was docked at the location since early Sunday.

"Hopefully what we have found as what we expected, and we will immediately follow it up," he asserted.

The head of the National SAR Agency (Basarnas) Bagus Puruhito said the search would apply three methods. First, searching by air using helicopters belonging to the Indonesian Air Force and Basarnas.

Second, searches at sea level using ships, and the third, searches below sea level using ships equipped with sonar.

Basarnas searched on and under the surface and found one bag containing aircraft debris that is believed part of Sriwijaya Air.

The debris was found in waters of Thousand Islands between Lancang Island and Laki Island.

The Sriwijaya Air plane lost contact at 2.40 p.m. (0741GMT), four minutes after taking off from Soekarno Hatta Airport.

The aircraft carried 62 people -- 50 passengers and 12 crew.

*Writing by Dandy Koswaraputra from Anadolu Agency's Indonesian-language service in Jakarta