the Makasser Strait had teams searching for the plane. The head of the National Search and Rescue Agency told the Associated Press that he believed the aircraft was probably lost at sea. From 5 January 2007, the main focus of the search was relocated to areas south of Manado, after Manado's Sam Ratulangi Airport reported detecting a signal from the plane a day before. The rugged terrain coupled with thick and low hanging clouds continued to hamper the search efforts, however, and three relatives of missing passengers who overflew part of the area on a military reconnaissance plane admitted that the chances of finding the plane were slim. Officials said that it was unlikely any bodies had survived in one piece. On 14 January, at Indonesia's request, Singapore lent four towed underwater locator beacon detectors, sometimes called Towed Pinger Locators, and six consultants in their use to aid in the search. One week later, one of these Towed Pinger Locators, operated from the USNS Mary Sears successfully located the black boxes. On 24 January, the British ship MN Endeavour joined the search for wreckage. The ship is operated by local mining firm PT Gema Tera Mustikawati and is usually used by oil and gas drilling companies to map the seabed. By then, the Indonesian government had spent an average of Rp 1 billion (about US$110,000) a day on the search. On 10 February, search operations were officially halted by the Search and Rescue Agency, according to Transportation Minister Hatta Rajasa, finalising the legal status of both the plane and its passengers and crew. This announcement allowed the families of the victims to start the insurance claims process. Discovery of wreckage Unidentified submerged objects On Monday, 8 January, three large metal objects, suspected to be wreckage, were detected by the Indonesian ship KRI Fatahillah's sonar. First Admiral Gatot Subyanto of the Indonesian Navy indicated three locations, between apart, off Mamuju city on Sulawesi's western coast. Due to limitations of the navy's sonar equipment, it was not clear what the metal was, and Indonesia had no other equipment of its own. A United States Navy oceanographic survey ship, Mary Sears, arrived in the area on 9 January with better equipment to help identify the objects, and on the same date a Canadian jet with five separate air crews, working in shifts, was sent to aid with aerial mapping of the suspected location.