Indonesia finds wreckage of missing surveillance plane carrying 10, one body

JAKARTA: Indonesian authorities said on Sunday they had located the wreckage of a fisheries surveillance plane that went missing in South Sulawesi province on the slope of a fog-covered mountain and had recovered the body of one of the 10 people on board.

The ATR 42-500 turboprop owned by aviation group Indonesia Air Transport (IAT) lost contact with air traffic control on Saturday at about 1:30 p.m. local time (0530 GMT) around the Maros region in South Sulawesi.

There were seven crew members and three passengers on board the plane, which was chartered by Indonesia’s Marine Affairs and Fisheries Ministry to conduct air surveillance on fisheries. The passengers were ministry staff members.

Authorities had initially said eight crew members were on board but later revised the figure. The plane was flying to Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi, from Yogyakarta before losing contact.

On Sunday morning, local rescuers found the wreckage in different locations around Mount Bulusaraung in the Maros region, said Andi Sultan, an official at South Sulawesi’s rescue agency. The mountain is roughly 1,500 km (930 miles) northeast of the sprawling island nation’s capital, Jakarta.

“Our helicopter crews have seen the debris of the plane’s window at 7:46 a.m.,” Sultan said.

“And around 7:49 a.m., we discovered large parts of the aircraft, suspected to be the fuselage of the plane,” he said, adding the tail of the plane was also seen at the bottom of the mountain slope.

Rescuers have also located other wreckage such as the aircraft engine and passenger seats.

Personnel have been deployed to the locations where the wreckage was discovered, Sultan said, adding the search was hampered by thick fog and mountainous terrain.

On Sunday afternoon, rescuers found a crash victim’s body in a ravine around 200 m (650 feet) from Mount Bulusaraung’s peak, Sultan said. The status of the other nine people on board was not yet known.