Singapore's SilkAir airline said the Boeing 737-300 which crashed in Indonesia yesterday with 104 people on board was the newest in its fleet - just 10 months old. SilkAir's flight MI185 crashed midway between Jakarta and Singapore and Indonesian officials said there appeared to be little hope of survivors after it broke up in a marshy area near the south Sumatran city of Palembang. The airline said in a statement it had no reports of distress calls from the aircraft. Singapore's Communications Minister, Mr Mah Bow Tan, said there was no information from the crash site. "We don't have any information on what transpired," Mr Tan said. "We have not gone into probing the reasons yet."
Mr Tan said the first priority was getting rescue teams to the crash site, and Singapore and Indonesia were co-ordinating their efforts.
Relatives, some weeping, gathered at Singapore's modern Changi airport but were kept well away from reporters. Mr Tan said they would be flown to Palembang today on a special SilkAir flight.
SilkAir, the regional arm of Singapore Airlines, said the plane crashed 55 km north of Palembang, not five miles away as was reported earlier.
"SilkAir is sad to confirm that at 20.30 hours Singapore time this evening [12.30 Irish time], 19th December, 1997, confirmation was received from the Indonesian authorities that the missing SilkAir aircraft had crashed on land 35 miles north of Palembang, which is midway between Jakarta and Singapore," it said in a statement.
"The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, together with the Republic of Singapore Air Force, has activated its emergency rescue teams. An experienced medical team from Asian Emergency Assistance has also been activated," it said.
"The aircraft, a Boeing 737-300 was 10 months old and the newest aircraft in our fleet," the airline added. "It departed from Jakarta at 15.23 hours Jakarta time and disappeared from the radar screen at 16.13 hours Jakarta time."