Searchers who hiked the slopes of a Philippine volcano to find the wreckage of a plane that crashed over the weekend confirmed that the two Australian energy consultants and two Philippine crew members on board did not survive, the mayor of a local town said on Wednesday.
More than a dozen army troops and firefighters were dropped off from an air force helicopter in the morning before hiking to the crash site on a gully on Mayon volcano’s slope, civil aviation officials said.
The Cessna 340 went missing after taking off on Saturday.
Photo: AP
“There were no survivors,” Camalig Mayor Carlos Baldo told reporters in a cellphone message when asked about the fate of the four people onboard the plane.
The remains of the people from the plane were to be brought down the volcano yesterday, he said.
The two Australians were working as consultants for Energy Development Corp, a large geothermal power company, which owned the plane that was flown by a Philippine pilot with a crew member.
The company deployed teams backed by helicopters and drones to help in the search, which was hampered by heavy rains, gusty wind and thick clouds.
Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, who was in Manila on Wednesday for talks with Philippine officials, expressed his condolences to the families of the people on board before the deaths were confirmed by Baldo later in the day.
The mayor oversaw the search for the Cessna aircraft by nearly 200 army troops, firefighters and volunteers, including veteran mountaineers.
“Can I just express my condolences to both Australian and Filipino families of those who died in the very tragic plane accident?” Marles asked Philippine Secretary of Defense Carlito Galvez Jr at a news conference in Manila.
He thanked all those who helped in the search, including two soldiers who were shot and killed by suspected communist guerrillas on Monday while buying supplies in a market in Camalig, military officials said.
“It is a moment where the really personal nature of the relationship between our two countries is very manifest and felt very profoundly,” said Marles, who also serves as Australian minister for defense.
Contact with the plane was lost a few minutes after it took off from Albay’s international airport for the one hour flight to the capital, Manila.
The wreckage was spotted in an aerial search on Sunday on the slope of the 2,462m volcano, but an air force helicopter only managed to ferry the search team near the crash site on Wednesday morning after the weather improved, officials said.
Only the tail section of the plane remained intact, with the rest of the wreckage scattered on the barren upper slopes of the volcano, said Eric Apolonio, spokesman of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines.
Villagers are normally prohibited from entering a permanent danger zone 6km around the volcano, which last erupted in 2018, displacing tens of thousands of people.
However, the nation’s volcano-monitoring agency allowed the high-risk search-and-rescue effort on Mayon, one of the country’s 24 most active volcanoes, with a warning for the team members to be alert for sudden emissions of volcanic ash and gas or sudden mudflows if rain fell on the slopes.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
CONFLICTING REPORTS: Beijing said it was ‘not familiar with the matter’ when asked if Chinese jets were used in the conflict, after Pakistan’s foreign minister said they were The Pakistan Army yesterday said it shot down 25 Indian drones, a day after the worst violence between the nuclear-armed rivals in two decades. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched deadly missile strikes on Wednesday morning, escalating days of gunfire along their border. At least 45 deaths were reported from both sides following Wednesday’s violence, including children. Pakistan’s military said in a statement yesterday that it had “so far shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones” at multiple location across the country. “Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed
RSS