Crashed Indonesian plane found 'destroyed', no survivors
Jayapura
A plane that crashed in eastern Indonesia was Tuesday found "completely destroyed" with the bodies of all 54 passengers and crew strewn amid the wreckage in a fire-blackened jungle clearing, officials said.
Rescuers finally reached the debris of the Trigana Air plane, which went down Sunday in Papua province during a short flight in bad weather, after abandoning search efforts a day earlier due to mountainous terrain, thick fog and rain.
The black box flight data recorders, which could provide clues about the cause of the crash, were retrieved. Money -- some of it burnt -- was also found among the wreckage of the plane, which had been transporting 6.5 billion rupiah ($470,000) in cash.
"The plane has crashed, it is completely destroyed," Bambang Soelistyo, head of the country's search and rescue agency, said of the ATR 42-300 plane after teams reached the site in the morning. "Everything was in pieces and part of the plane is burnt."
It is just the latest air accident in Indonesia, which has a poor aviation safety record and has suffered major disasters in recent months, including the crash of an AirAsia plane in December with the loss of 162 lives.
Photos of the site showed a fire-blackened clearing in thick jungle strewn with debris. The twin-turboprop plane was carrying 54 people -- 49 passengers and five crew -- and officials said all the bodies had been found.
The team of about 100 rescuers, including soldiers and police, who reached the crash site found some bodies were not intact while others were badly burnt. All those on board were believed to be Indonesians.
Authorities were planning to airlift the bodies from the site by helicopter but efforts were suspended on Tuesday afternoon due to thick fog, Soelistyo told reporters in Jayapura, Papua's capital.
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