As the search for the missing Bell helicopter with seven people on board in Sarawak enters the 13th day, many theories are circulating about their disappearance.

Frustrated by the inability to locate the helicopter, whose passengers include state Assistant Minister Dr Judson Tagal and other prominent individuals, the services of bomohs have been engaged.

"It's like searching for a needle in a haystack," was how one journalist based in Miri described the search and rescue operations that involves aircraft from Malaysia, Brunei, Australia and US and more than 1000 men, most of them on foot covering a large area of mountainous terrain.

The latest theory is that the helicopter could have been hijacked by a militant group but this was dismissed by state Public Utilities Minister Awang Tengah Ali Hasan.

According to senior bank manager Freddie Acho, a Lun Bawang from Be'kalalan, the helicopter was sighted by villagers in Pa Lungan flying extremely low within the valley in a 'somewhat acrobatic manner.'

Two hours later, some villagers in Lawas also sighted a helicopter flying low over their village heading in the direction of the coastal areas.

RM100,000 daily

However, Acho was quick to add that around this time the assistant minister's private secretary Nelson Balang had sent two other helicopters to search the area.

According to him, a Borneo Evangelical Mission (SIB) deacon was at Bario on July 12 and had with several others sent off Judson.

Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister Dr George Chan, who is search-and-rescue operations director, has admitted to a lack of definite ideas of where the helicopter was actually heading for.

This has made the search much more difficult, he was quoted as saying in the local press.

Meanwhile, the Lun Bawang commnity in the Be'kalalan, not wanting to believe that the official search party had combed every inch of the ground where the helicopter might have come down, are conducting their own search over the same area again.

Malaysiakini understands that the search and rescue operations is costing about RM100,000 a day.

The question on everyone's mind is where could the helicopter have gone if it did not come down in the Baram, Limbang and Lawas regions.