Indonesian air force plane crashes into house, killing 3
An Indonesian air force plane crashed into a house on the country’s main island of Java on Wednesday, killing the pilot and two people in the house, a senior official said. A second person on the plane was missing.
The plane was on a routine maintenance flight when it crashed near Abdul Rahman Saleh air force base in Malang, a hilly town in East Java province, said air force chief Air Marshal Agus Supriatna.
Supriatna said the pilot and a technician on the Brazilian-made Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano plane ejected before it crashed. The pilot was found dead near a rice field about 8 kilometres from his parachute, while the technician was still missing, he said.
Air force officials had previous said that both people on the plane died instantly. They said a man and a woman living in the house died while being treated at a hospital.
A neighbour who witnessed the crash, Slamet, told MetroTV that the plane appeared to be nose-diving out of control with smoke billowing from its tail when it crashed. Like many Indonesians, Slamet goes by a single name.
Malang is 850 kilometres east of Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital.
