Wreckage of Russian Aircraft Found in Indonesia
Baku, May 10 (AZERTAC). The wreckage of a demonstration airplane for a Russian-made passenger jet that vanished on Wednesday during a 50-minute flight over Indonesia was found on Thursday on the side of a mountain volcano shrouded in mist.
There were no signs of survivors among the 50 people, including crew members, journalists and airline representatives, aboard the plane, the Sukhoi Superjet 100, a spokesman for Indonesia`s Search and Rescue National Agency told The Associated Press.
In a televised address on Thursday, the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said investigators had been dispatched to the crash site.
“We don`t know what has happened, so rescue efforts for survivors is the priority,” Mr. Yudhoyono said.
Search and rescue personnel who reached the scene on the steep slopes of Mount Salak on the island of Java on Thursday afternoon discovered several bodies, The Associated Press reported. The fate of the jetliner — the first new model to be produced in Russia since the end of the Soviet Union — was a crushing blow to a national aerospace industry eager for revival.
The Superjet took off from Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in the Indonesian capital Jakarta on Wednesday afternoon for its second demonstration flight of the day. It disappeared from radar screens and lost contact with ground controllers about 20 minutes later after requesting permission to descend to 6,000 feet from 10,000 feet over the mountainous terrain of West Java.
It was not clear why the Russian pilot and co-pilot asked to descend or if they got the go-ahead. Communication between the pilots and air traffic control are being reviewed, The A.P. reported, but the tapes will not be made public immediately.
A resident near Mount Salak, named Juanda, said he heard the sound of a rumbling engine on Wednesday and saw a plane that seemed to veering to one side. “Salak Mountain was not visible because a lot of dark fog,” he told local media.
The mountain frequently experiences bad weather and heavy fog.
This prevented search parties from locating the plane on Wednesday. When the weather cleared on Thursday, search helicopters spotted the wreckage on the side of a cliff about 5,000 feet up Mount Salak, Maj. Ali Umri Lubis of the Indonesian Air Force told MetroTV.
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