Indonesia finds 1 body, wreckage from missing surveillance plane
There were seven crew members and three passengers on the plane chartered to conduct air surveillance on fisheries
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 lost contact with air traffic control on Saturday at about 1.30pm local time 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.
Andi Sultan, an official at South Sulawesi’s rescue agency, said local rescuers found the wreckage in different locations around Mount Bulusaraung in the Maros region on Sunday morning. The mountain is roughly 1,500 km (930 miles) northeast of Jakarta.
“Our helicopter crews have seen the debris of the plane’s window at 7.46am,” Sultan said.