Wreckage found from Indonesian plane crash site

Clearer weather finally allowed Indonesian helicopters to land on Saturday and retrieve some remains of the 45 people aboard a Russian-made plane that crashed into a volcano during a demonstration flight.

Clearer weather finally allowed Indonesian helicopters to land on Saturday and retrieve some remains of the 45 people aboard a Russian-made plane that crashed into a volcano during a demonstration flight.

Investigators still have found no sign of the black box recorder that might explain why the new Sukhoi Superjet-100 slammed into Mount Salak about halfway through a 50-minute flight intended to woo potential Indonesian airline buyers on Wednesday.

HT Image

Relatives of the victims burst into tears as they watched men unload 10 black body bags from a military helicopter at a Jakarta airbase. Search teams who climbed the dormant volcano's near-vertical slopes have been struggling to retrieve remains of the victims, and helicopters were unable to land because of thick fog shrouding the mountain about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of Jakarta, the capital.

All those aboard the flight are now presumed dead, and the plane's shredded wreckage is scattered around the dense jungle. The teams including 15 professional climbers, have altogether filled 16 body bags with the remains they have found and today continued to search along the steep cliffs and in a nearby ravine near the wreckage, search and rescue agency spokesman Gagah Prakoso said.

The flight attendant named Ekaterina Solovyova, wrote on her Twitter page: "Huh? Did a Superjet crash? Hahaha! This aircraft sucks, it's a pity it wasn't in Aeroflot, that would be one less."