Indonesia battles to recover plane crash bodies

Jakarta: Indonesian rescuers battled fog and thick jungle Saturday to recover the bodies of 18 people, including three foreigners, killed in a plane crash at the base of a mountain, officials said.
The Casa C-212 transport plane disappeared from radar screens at 3:03 pm (0803 GMT) on Thursday around Mount Salak in West Java about 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of Jakarta near the town of Bogor, officials said earlier.
"The team is already at the location, but it's a gorge... it's quite difficult to go down and come up," air force spokesman Chaeruddin Ray said.
Low fog and slippery ground had slowed the progress of air force personnel and police at the crash site, Ray said.
The head of the search and rescue team, Hadi Tugiman, told AFP by telephone from the mountain that rescuers had already collected 15 of the victims and were readying a makeshift helipad to evacuate the bodies.
Rescuers will attempt to carry out the bodies by foot along an arduous path through the forest if the weather fails to clear, he said.
The three foreigners-from Britain, India and Singapore-were among six civilians on board the military plane when it took off from a Jakarta air base on a short flight to test ground imaging equipment, but it never returned.
The other 12 on the plane were from the military.
The wreckage was reached for the first time early Saturday morning after two days of uncertainty over its fate.
The foreigners reportedly worked for Credent Technology offering services in high-resolution satellite imagery and laser scanning for mapping.
Officials plan to return all bodies from the crash to Jakarta's Halim Perdanakusuma airbase, where the plane originally departed from.
The foreign office in London and the Singaporean foreign ministry confirmed that British and Singaporean nationals were on board. An Indian diplomat in Jakarta confirmed an Indian was also on the flight.
29/06/08 Associated Press of Pakistan/The Post

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Categories: Foreign Jun 2008, Safety Jun 2008