‘No chance anyone survived’ plane crash
All 54 people on board an Indonesian airliner died when it slammed into a mountain, the head of the country’s searchand-rescue agency said Tuesday.
“The plane was totally destroyed, and all the bodies were burned and difficult to identify,” National Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo told the Associated Press. “There is no chance anyone survived.”
Rescuers recovered 54 bodies from the wreckage of the Trigana Air Service turboprop that crashed Sunday, Soelistyo said. Remains will be taken by helicopter to the provincial capital of Jayapura for identification.
Soelistyo said searchers have also recovered the black box, which investigators hope will provide clues as to what caused the accident.
The wreckage of the missing flight was not spotted until Mon- day. Search crews’ initial efforts to reach the site, located at an elevation of about 8,500 feet in the eastern Indonesian province of Papau, were hindered by rugged terrain and bad weather.
Some planes that have crashed in Papua’s dense mountain jungles have never been found, the Associated Press reported.
There were 49 passengers — including five children — and five crewmembers on board what was scheduled to be a 42-minute flight from Jayapura to the city of Oksibil. Everyone aboard was Indonesian.
The plane was carrying nearly $500,000 in cash that was to be distributed to about 6,000 impoverished residents during a celebration marking Indonesia’s independence, Franciscus Haryono, the head of the post office in Jayapura, said Monday. Four postal workers were escorting the funds on the flight.
Rescue workers found the money, which was partly scorched, and will hand it over to authorities, Soelistyo told the AP.