An Indonesian military transport aircraft carrying 110 passengers and crew crashed and burst into flames in East Java yesterday, killing at least 98 people on board and on the ground.
The C-130 Hercules aircraft ploughed into houses on the ground, scattering debris and sending flames and billowing smoke into the air, in the latest of a series of air disasters in a country with a poor air safety record.
Air force spokesman Bambang Soelistyo said 98 people had been killed, including two on the ground, while there were 15 survivors.
“Some victims are still at the crash site,” said Mr Soelistyo. He said the aircraft, with 11 crew and 99 passengers, had crashed about 6.5km (four miles) from the Iswahyudi air force base in East Java while preparing to land.
National military spokesman Sagom Tamboen said the aircraft had been in good condition and the weather was clear before the crash.
But army chief Djoko Santoso later said there had been fog around the time of the crash.
The aircraft had been on a regular flight from Jakarta to the Iswahyudi air base in Magetan to transport military personnel and their families. It had been due to fly on to Sulawesi and Papua.
Footage from the scene showed people desperately trying to extinguish flames with buckets of water. “I heard a thunderous sound, like a car roaring past. I looked out and a huge plane had crashed into a clump of bamboo. The left wing landed in front of my house,” said one eyewitness.
An official at the scene said there were three dead people yet to be evacuated.
“About 15m (50ft) of the tail is still intact, but the body to the front is broken and burnt,” said a local official in Magetan, who said the crash took place at about 6.30am between Madiun and Magetan, about 150km (90 miles) southwest of Indonesia’s second-biggest city, Surabaya.
Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono urged people not to jump to conclusions about the cause of the crash before an investigation was completed.
Defence minister Juwono Sudarsono told reporters that maintenance should be 20 per cent to 25 per cent of the military budget but was below 10 per cent due to limited resources.
Indonesia has a poor record of air safety and maintenance.
Last month, 24 military personnel and crew died after a military aircraft carrying parachute trainees crashed into a hangar at a base in West Java. In recent years, there has also been a series of crashes involving commercial passenger aircraft. Indonesian airlines are banned from EU airspace over safety concerns.