Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations
Watch Live

Indonesian Officials Find No Survivors In Wreckage Of Downed Plane

Indonesian rescue crews have found the wreckage of a Trigana Air Service twin-turboprop that was carrying 54 passengers when it crashed in Papua over the weekend.

The crews found no survivors but they did recover the plane's black box, which could provide a clue as to why the plane crashed.

The AFP reports:

Advertisement
"'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."

Reuters reports that Major-General Heronimus Guru said the terrain could have factored into the crash.

"There's a possibility the aircraft hit a peak and then fell into a ravine because the place that it was found in is steep," he said.

Guru added that rescue crews had started putting remains in body bags.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.