Indonesian rescuers find body, wreckage of plane

JAKARTA — Indonesian rescuers on Sunday recovered a body in the continuing search for 10 people aboard a plane that went missing and crashed the previous day while approaching a mountainous region on Sulawesi island during cloudy weather.

The rescue team retrieved the body of a man in a ravine about 200 meters deep on the slope of Mount Bulusaraung on Sunday afternoon, located near scattered aircraft debris. The evacuation of the body is underway, said Muhammad Arif Anwar, who heads Makassar's Search and Rescue Office and is the mission coordinator.

Teams also found additional wreckage, including parts of the aircraft frame and passenger seats, and visually identified what is believed to be the engine, Anwar said.

The body has not yet been identified, but is believed to have been on board the turboprop ATR 42-500 that was on its way from Yogyakarta on Indonesia's main island of Java to Makassar, the capital city of South Sulawesi Province, when it vanished from radar on Saturday shortly after being instructed by air traffic control to correct its approach alignment.

The plane, operated by Indonesia Air Transport, was last tracked at 1:17 pm in the Leang-Leang area of Maros, a mountainous district of South Sulawesi. It was carrying seven crew members and three passengers from the Marine Affairs and Fisheries Ministry who were conducting an aerial monitoring of local fisheries.

A rescue team on an air force helicopter on Sunday morning spotted what appeared to be a small aircraft window in a forested area on the slope of Mount Bulusaraung, Anwar said. Rescuers on the ground later retrieved larger debris consistent with the main fuselage and tail scattered on a steep northern slope, Anwar told a news conference.

"The discovery of the aircraft's main sections significantly narrows the search zone and offers a crucial clue for tightening the search area,"Anwar said.

"Our joint search and rescue teams are now focusing on searching for the victims, especially those who might still be alive."

Agencies via Xinhua