then tried to recover the aircraft from its descent by turning the yoke to the left. Believing that the aircraft is flying straight and level, Captain Widodo then unknowingly reminds First Officer Susanto that the aircraft needs to fly straight and level in order to complete the IRS alignment process. Now that the aircraft had attained a 100 degree bank with a 60 degree nose down attitude, First Officer Susanto then successfully notifies the captain of their situation. In response to the first officer telling him to pull up to stop the rapid descent towards the sea, Captain Widodo pulls back on his yoke, and the aircraft, travelling over 90 percent of the speed of sound, begins to break apart in-flight. All recordings stop at 9000 feet, presumably because the aircraft had fully broken apart. No distress signals were sent by the aircraft. Victims There was one German, 98 Indonesians and three American citizens on board the flight. Search and rescue efforts 3,600 army and police personnel were mobilised in the search for the missing aircraft. One Boeing 737-200 Surveiller (a military surveillance plane), two infrared-equipped Fokker-50 aircraft from the Republic of Singapore Air Force, a Navy Nomad plane and six helicopters were dispatched to aid searching for the missing plane from the air. The Indonesian sonar-equipped ship Pulau Rengat, capable of detecting underwater metallic objects later joined the team, equipped with a mini remote-controlled submarine. It searched the sea for five days between 3 and 8 January, without success. Naval ships combed the Makassar Strait while military personnel went through jungles and mountains of Sulawesi. In the face of heavy rain and strong winds in the area, the search efforts, coordinated from Makassar city, were focused in the area between the coastal town of Majene and the mountainous region of Toraja. The search in the two areas was due to twin signals, each carrying different emergency locator transmitter frequencies, received by the Singaporean satellite and an Indonesian military air base. The two separate locations produced on radar screens were a spot on the sea in Majene and on land in Rantepao, Tana Toraja. Searches were then expanded throughout the Island of Sulawesi; some were triggered by unknown distress signals received by a commercial Lion Air flight and an airport. A police officer at the Barru district police operational centre said that all the districts with stretches of coastline along