On New Year’s Day 2007, a Boeing 737 carrying 102 people vanished off the coast of Sulawesi, Indonesia. No distress signal had been received and no wreckage could be found. In an echo of the TV show Lost, the plane and its passengers and crew seemed to have disappeared without trace. What had happened to Adam Air Flight 574?

This is a feature I wrote at the time for the Sunday Herald Magazine. You can read a text-only version online, or view it with photos as a PDF.

The missing 737-400 was operated by short-haul carrier Adam Air, and was one of hundreds of planes that regularly hop between the Indonesian islands. Flight 574 left Surabaya, on the north coast of Java and around 150 miles west of Bali, at 12.55 local time. It was bound for Manado, a coastal resort on the northern tip of Sulawesi. Manado is just over 1000 miles north-east of Surabaya, across the Java Sea and Makassar Strait, and over Sulawesi’s mountains and jungles and the equatorial line. On board for the two-hour flight were 91 adults, seven children and four infants. Read more.

Wikipedia map showing Flight 574's route

Paul Features Lost, Plane Crash