Fatimah Otunsanya
Rescuers have found the bodies of all 10 people were on board a chartered plane that crashed into a mountain in Indonesia at the weekend, a local official said Friday.
The turboprop plane, chartered by the fisheries ministry, was carrying seven crew and three civil servants, when it lost contact with air traffic control on Saturday.
The aircraft crashed into Mount Bulusaraung on the island of Sulawesi.
Eight bodies were recovered earlier this week as rescuers combed the mountain’s steep slopes, their efforts hampered by the tough terrain and poor weather conditions.
The bodies of the two remaining missing people were found on Friday and would be recovered, said local rescue official Andi Sultan.
The plane’s black box was located on Wednesday and could shed light on what caused the plane to crash shortly before it was due to land in the city of Makassar, the local search and rescue agency said.
Debris from the plane, including its fuselage, parts of the tail and windows were found on Sunday near the mountaintop.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago in Southeast Asia, relies heavily on air transport to connect its thousands of islands.
The country has a poor aviation safety record, with several fatal crashes in recent years.
A helicopter carrying six passengers and two crew members crashed in September shortly after taking off from South Kalimantan province, killing everybody on board.
Four people were killed less than two weeks after the September crash when their helicopter crashed in the remote Papua district of Ilaga.