Investigators picked through the wreckage of an Indonesian passenger plane that crashed in stormy weather, killing at least 32 people in the country's worst air accident in six years.
Forty others were injured when the budget carrier Lion Air plane smashed through a fence at the end of the runway and ended up in a graveyard outside Adi Sumarmo airport in Solo on Tuesday, data collected from three hospitals in the town showed.
However, Lion Air and a local airport official said yesterday that 26 people were killed in the accident. The cause of the discrepancy was not immediately clear.
The aircraft was carrying 141 passengers and five crew members, and officials said all have been accounted for.
The body of the pilot of the MD-82 was recovered early yesterday, airline spokesman Hasyim Arsal said. No other bodies were found at the scene, said Rudi Patrianto, a local airport official.
State airline safety investigators were examining the plane and collecting pieces of the fuselage. The aircraft suffered major damage to its nose and rear.
Several people being treated for injuries in hospital said they had unfastened their seatbelts when they felt the plane touch down. Arsal said this contributed to the high death toll.
"Everyone panicked and was shouting hysterically," said survivor Dedi, who was being treated in hospital yesterday with a broken leg. "People thought the plane was going to explode." Dedi goes by a single name.
The airline, meanwhile, blamed bad weather for the accident.
Heavy rain and high winds were lashing the runway when the plane landed, Arsal said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of