Indonesia: Plane With 18 Aboard Crashes

Medan, a passenger plane with 18 people aboard crashed in good weather is the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Thursday, officials said, the fourth serious accident this month sprawling archipelago.

The flight operated by Air Buana Nusantara Indonesia crashed at 1,100 meters (3,600 feet) in a mountainous area about 70 kilometers (43 miles) northwest of Medan City Department of Transportation aviation head Herry Bakti said.

House 212 turboprop aircraft, carrying 14 passengers and four crew, left Medan at 7:18 (0018 GMT) near the Aceh province on the road when he came down after sending a distress signal.

Search and rescue team was still trying to reach the remote crash in the early afternoon and there was no word on the fate of the ship, which included four children. Bakti said no foreigners were on a flight.

“We have found the plane, and the body is still intact, so we hope that the passengers have survived,” Bakti said, after the plane was sighted in aerial surveillance.

“It crashed sometime between 7:28 and 8:05 this morning around Bohorok Mountain,” he said.

Local search-and-rescue chief Suhri Sinaga said that the aircraft had sent an emergency signal near Bahorok Mountain shortly before losing contact with air traffic control.

Bakti said that the weather in the area was fine and that the pilots would have had clear vision.

“At this point we don’t know what caused the crash,” he said.

Buana Nusantara runs regular commercial flights in Sumatra. The airline has a fleet of six planes of the CAPA Aviation Center.

The car, which crashed into a 1989 model, which flew 11 000 hours. Bakti said that the ship was last inspected in November 2010.

The company, however, Detik.com news website says that the plane had undergone a routine check on 22 September.

“When the aircraft left, it was in airworthy condition,” said Nusantara Buana safety manager Robur Rizallianto.

Bakti said the government would bring in tougher safety regulations and ask operators to carry out more training to prevent future accidents.