Indonesian military transport plane crashed

An Indonesian military transport plane crashed into a residential area in East Java early Wednesday, killing 97 people, Television footage showed the burning wreckage of the Hercules scattered in rice paddies in Magetan, East Java, about 160 kilometres (100 miles) east of Yogyakarta.

"The death toll is now 97 people and 15 injured," spokesman Bambang Sulistio told AFP.

The plane was carrying 98 passengers including soldiers and their families, among them 10 children, on a flight to the eastern province of Papua, military spokesman Sagom Tamboen said earlier.

Soldiers search for victims at the plane's crash site in East Java Wednesday.

1 of 3 The death toll might rise, because the Air Force said 112 people were thought to be aboard when the Hercules transport plane crashed about 6:30 a.m.

The crash destroyed four homes and killed two people who lived in at least one of the homes, said Suwardi, the village leader of Karas in East Java.

The plane had a crew of 14 people and was carrying an additional 98 passengers, Major Gen. Suwarno said.

At least 15 people from the flight had been rescued, according to Bambang Sulistyo, an Indonesian air force spokesman. Watch what happened to the plane »

Wahyu Nuryanto, a staff member at the Iswahyudi hospital in nearby Madiun, told local media that 19 people were brought to the hospital -- several with serious injuries, including multiple fractures.

The 19 included air force personnel, family members of air force personnel, and civilians, Nuryanto said.

Rescue crews Wednesday were evacuating the crash area where local media showed plumes of smoke billowing from a rice field and rescuers scrambling to move victims on makeshift stretchers.

The crash comes a day after another Indonesian Hercules transport plane crashed on a runway after touching down early. No one was killed in that crash in Papua province.

It is the second accident involving an Indonesian Air Force Hercules in two weeks, after one overshot the runway of Wamena airport in Papua on May 10. One person was reportedly injured in that incident.

In response to the Wamena accident, the air force said it would check its ageing Hercules fleet which is being upgraded with airframe and engine capability improvements.

Early last month, 24 military personnel died when their Fokker 27 training aircraft careered into a hangar and burst into flames at an air base in West Java.

Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic nation and relies heavily on air travel, but accidents are common and its commercial airlines are banned from flying in European Union airspace for safety reasons.

SOURCE : YAHOO NEWS,CNN

Related Posts