Military plane may have been carrying paying passengers
MEDAN, Indonesia — Indonesia’s air force said Wednesday it will investigate if the transport plane that crashed into a city neighbourhood, killing 141 people, was violating orders by carrying paying passengers.
A local military commander said the search for bodies has ended.
The dead included all 122 on the plane, including military personnel and family members, and people in a residential area of Medan where the C-130 Hercules crashed shortly after takeoff on Tuesday, North Sumatra police Maj. A. Tarigan said.
The final death toll may not be known for some time. Body parts were also retrieved from the rubble and transported to a hospital in two body bags.
The cause of the accident is not yet known but the pilot was trying to return to the airport because of an engine problem.
The C-130 was carrying many more passengers than the military first reported. Initially, the air force said there were 12 crew members on the 51-year-old plane and did not mention passengers. It then repeatedly raised the number of people on board, indicating lax controls and raising questions about whether the plane was accepting paying passengers despite previous promises to crack down on the practice.
Hitching rides on military planes to reach remote destinations is common in Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago that spans three time zones. The plane had travelled from the capital, Jakarta, and landed at two locations before stopping over at Medan on Sumatra, one of Indonesia’s main islands.
Air force chief Air Marshal Agus Supriatna told reporters the C-130 was only authorized to carry military personnel and their families. He said he would investigate allegations of paying passengers.
A copy of the manifest seen by The Associated Press shows 32 passengers with no designation. The rest are described as either military or military family members. In some circumstances, civilians such as government officials or researchers can get authorization to fly on military planes, according to Supriatna.
Dozens of family members gathered at Adam Malik Hospital on Wednesday. Outside its mortuary, more than 100 wood coffins were arranged in rows and women cried and screamed the names of loved ones killed in the disaster.
A group of students from a Catholic high school in the city screamed hysterically as a body bag was opened, revealing the badly bruised corpse of classmate Esther Lina Josephine, 17, clasping her 14-year-old sister.
“She looks like she wanted to protect her younger sister,” said the school’s principal, Tarcisia Hermas.
“We’ve lost kind and smart students who had so many creative ideas.”
Hermas said the sisters were travelling during school vacation to see their parents in the remote Natuna island chain, where the father of the teenagers is stationed with the army.
Adam Malik Hospital spokeswoman Sairi M. Saragih said more than 60 bodies have been identified.
Indonesia has a patchy civil aviation safety record and its cash-strapped air force has suffered a series of accidents. Between 2007 and 2009, the European Union barred Indonesian airlines from flying to Europe because of safety worries.