Indonesia crash toll rises to 142

MEDAN—The death toll from the crash of an Indonesian air force plane packed with military personnel and their families rose to 142 on Wednesday, as witnesses described people fleeing the disaster zone covered in blood with their clothes alight.

The Hercules C-130 transport plane crashed into a residential area of Medan on Tuesday, shortly after taking off from an airbase in the city on Sumatra island.

Buildings were severely damaged, cars reduced to flaming wrecks and the plane itself was almost completely destroyed, with the mangled tail the only part of the 51-year-old aircraft still recognizable after the disaster.

Many of those on board the flight to an island off Sumatra, which was carrying 122 people, were believed to be servicemen and women and their families.

But the air force has repeatedly revised up the number of people on the plane—it initially indicated there were only 12 crew—raising questions about poor management and whether there were paying civilians on board in violation of military rules.

As more bodies were pulled from the rubble and taken to hospital, police put the total death toll at 142, indicating a growing number of fatalities.

New witness accounts emerged of terrifying scenes, with one man describing how the plane flew low and then smashed into a building, producing “flames as high as four storeys.”

Several buildings were thought to have been destroyed in the crash, with officials saying that the plane hit a massage parlor and a hotel. An army officer said many bodies were found in pieces.

Claims emerged that civilian passengers other than armed forces’ families may have been on the plane to Bintan island, close to Singapore, and had paid to travel, with the Jakarta Globe reporting that the military was investigating the allegations.

Tuesday’s accident was the sixth deadly crash involving an Indonesian air force plane in the past decade, according to the Aviation Safety Network, prompting Indonesian President Joko Widodo to call for modernization of the military’s ageing equipment.