13 feared dead after Indonesian police plane drops out of contact

JAKARTA: Thirteen people are feared dead after an Indonesian police plane lost contact during a flight on Saturday to the island of Batam near Singapore.

The light cargo and passenger M28 Skytruck plane, carrying five crew members and eight passengers, dropped out of contact midmorning about 50 minutes after taking off from Pangkal Pinang in Bangka Belitung province off the southeast coast of Sumatra island, police said in a statement.

It was scheduled to land in Batam in nearby Riau Kepulauan province at 10.58 am.

All of those aboard the plane were policemen, according to the statement.

National Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said rescuers were searching waters between Mensanak and Sebangka islands for the plane.

He said villagers found a seat and a bag containing a cellphone and police documents.

TV footage showed that police uniforms and other articles of clothing also had been retrieved from the sea.

PILOT SUFFERS HEART ATTACK IN GLASGOW

The pilot of a plane carrying 128 people suffered a heart attack as he taxied to the runway at Glasgow airport.

The captain of the KLM aircraft became unwell as he was about to leave for Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. He was resuscitated by the crew with the help of a passenger. Firefighters from Glasgow airport helped take the Dutch pilot off the plane, where he was met by ambulance crews and taken to a hospital in Clydebank.