Medan.
Search and rescue workers have retrieved 141 bodies from the wreckage of a
military plane that crashed in Medan, North Sumatra, on Tuesday, with many more
feared dead and still trapped beneath the debris.
Forensics
experts have identified 23 military personnel out of the 141 bodies pulled from
the site, where a Hercules C-130 military transport aircraft crashed into a
residential area shortly after takeoff on Tuesday.
“The bodies
have been evacuated to Adam Malik General Hospital in Medan,” Sr. Comr. Setyo,
the forensics chief at the North Sumatra Police, said on Wednesday.
“There were
identity cards and names on the victims’ uniforms so they were recognized
quickly,” he said of the 23 bodies identified so far, adding that four of the
bodies had already been handed over to their families.
The
Indonesian Military (TNI) has launched an investigation to determine whether
the aircraft had been used for civilian transport purposes, a rent-seeking
practice common in areas underserved by commercial air links.
An initial
probe suggests the plane’s operators had indeed been ferrying passengers for
money.
“We can
confirm that soldiers’ family members were on board; their wives and children,
but if there were other people who paid for the trip we will seek
responsibility from the unit’s commander,” a military official said.
The
Lockheed C-130 Hercules, a four-engine turboprop military transportation plane
carrying 12 crew members and 109 passengers, crashed two minutes after taking
off from the Soewondo air base on Tuesday afternoon, killing everyone on board
as well as people on the ground.
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