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Toll Expected to Rise After Indonesian Military Plane Crashes Into City Dozens Killed as Indonesian Military Plane Crashes Into City
(about 1 hour later)
JAKARTA, Indonesia — An Indonesian military aircraft crashed into an urban neighborhood on Tuesday, killing at least five people, an armed forces spokesman said. The toll was expected to rise. JAKARTA, Indonesia — An Indonesian military aircraft crashed into a neighborhood in the city of Medan on Tuesday, killing dozens of people, officials said.
The military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Fuad Basya, told an Indonesian television station that 12 members of the air force were aboard the C-130 Hercules when it crashed in the city of Medan, on the island of Sumatra. It had been flying to the Natuna Islands in the South China Sea on a mission to drop off supplies for military personnel, he said. A spokeswoman for Adam Malik General Hospital, where an identification center for victims was being established, said 45 people were known to have been killed. Three people were being treated for injuries, said the spokeswoman, Sairi Saragih.
“Five air force crew were found killed on the scene,” the general told Metro TV, adding that the military could not yet confirm whether there were also civilian casualties. “We are focusing on evacuation at the time being,” he said. Inspector General Eko Hadi Sutedjo, the chief of police for North Sumatra Province, said that 50 people may have been aboard the C-130 Hercules when it crashed, including members of the military and their families.
Sairi M. Saragih, a spokeswoman for Adam Malik General Hospital in Medan, said 20 bodies had been brought to the hospital, according to The Associated Press. It was unclear whether people on the ground in Medan, a city of two million on the island of Sumatra, had been killed. Images carried on local television and posted online showed onlookers gathered around burning buildings at the scene of the crash, with several ambulances and fire trucks trying to make their way through the crowd.
Images carried on local television and posted online showed onlookers gathered around burning buildings at the scene of the crash, with several ambulances and fire trucks trying to make their way through the crowd. The plane had been flying to the Natuna Islands in the South China Sea on a mission to drop off supplies for military personnel, a military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Fuad Basya, told Metro TV.
Indonesia has a troubled history of air safety, including several crashes in and around Medan. In 2005, a Boeing 737-200 operated by Mandala Airlines, a low-cost carrier, overran a runway during a failed takeoff there, killing 100 passengers and crew members and 49 people on the ground.
An Airbus A300 flown by Garuda Indonesia crashed on approach to Medan in 1997, killing 234 people. Miscommunication between the pilots and air traffic control and a thick haze caused by forest fires were blamed in that crash. In December, Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 crashed in the Java Sea on a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore, killing all 162 passengers and crew members aboard.
In April, an F-16 fighter jet burst into flames on a runway at an air base in Jakarta, the capital. It was one of five F-16s that arrived from the United States last year. The Indonesian Air Force said at the time that it was grounding the four other jets while the cause of the accident was investigated.
Gerry Soejatman, an Indonesian aviation analyst, said the military had complained in the past that an American arms embargo, which was put in place in response to abuses in East Timor, had harmed its ability to maintain aircraft. But that embargo was lifted in 2005 and is no longer a valid excuse, he said.
“We have to look at why this is happening,” he said. “Back then it was easy to explain. Now we do not have an embargo. We have to see if this is because of a problem or if this was just a mishap.”
The C-130, an American-built four-engine turboprop, is a workhorse cargo and passenger aircraft for militaries around the world.The C-130, an American-built four-engine turboprop, is a workhorse cargo and passenger aircraft for militaries around the world.
Indonesia has a troubled history of air safety, including several crashes in and around Medan, a city of two million. In 2005, a Boeing 737-200 operated by Mandala Airlines, a low-cost carrier, overran a runway during a failed takeoff there, killing 100 passengers and crew members and 49 people on the ground.
An Airbus A300 flown by Garuda Indonesia crashed on approach to Medan in 1997, killing 234 people. Miscommunication between the pilots and air traffic control and a thick haze caused by forest fires were blamed in that crash.
In December, Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 crashed in the Java Sea on a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore, killing all 162 passengers and crew members aboard.