More than 100 people were feared dead after a military transport plane ploughed into a residential area shortly after take-off in northern Indonesia yesterday, in what might be the deadliest accident yet for an air force with a long history of crashes.
“For the moment we know there were 113 people [on board]. It looks like there are no survivors,” Indonesian Air Marshal Agus Supriatna told Metro TV in the Sumatran city of Medan, adding that some of the passengers were members of air force families.
Officials said the plane plunged into a built-up area of Medan. Eye witnesses said it had appeared to explode shortly before it smashed into houses and a hotel.
Photo: Reuters
An official at a nearby hospital who declined to be named said that 55 bodies had been brought in so far. In the first hours after the crash officials had said that only a crew of 12 were on board.
Black smoke billowed from the wreckage, and crowds of people milling around the area initially hampered emergency services rushing to the scene.
“We have been using heavy equipment like earth movers to clear the wreckage of the plane,” said Romali, chief of Medan’s search and rescue agency, who has only one name.
Photo: EPA
“We are still evacuating bodies from the rubble and we hope we can finish the operation tonight,” said.
The Hercules transport plane was on its way from an air force base in Medan to Tanjung Pinang in Sumatra. It had traveled from the capital, Jakarta, and stopped at two locations before arriving at Medan. The air force is still to trying to determine how many people got off or boarded during that journey.
Media said the pilot had asked to return because of technical problems.
“It passed overhead a few times, really low,” Elfrida Efi, a receptionist at the Golden Eleven Hotel, said by telephone. “There was fire and black smoke. The third time it came by it crashed into the roof of the hotel and exploded straight away.”
According to the Aviation Safety Network, there have been 10 fatal crashes involving Indonesian military or police aircraft over the past decade.
Yesterday’s accident is the also second time in 10 years that an airplane has crashed into a Medan neighborhood. In September 2005, a Mandala Airlines Boeing 737 crashed shortly after taking off from Medan’s Polonia airport, killing 143 people, including 30 on the ground.
Additional reporting by AP
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