Recovery of Passenger Bodies from Downed Aircraft in Indonesia

Surveillance Aircraft Crash in Sulawesi Province

The remains of ten individuals have been retrieved following the crash of a surveillance aircraft in the Sulawesi province.

On Friday, Indonesia’s search and rescue agency announced that teams had successfully located the bodies of ten individuals who were on board a fisheries surveillance plane that had gone missing in South Sulawesi over the weekend.

The ATR 42-500 aircraft, operated by Indonesia Air Transport Group, lost communication with air traffic control on Saturday around 1:30 p.m. local time (0530 GMT) in the vicinity of Maros Regency.

This plane was chartered by the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries for the purpose of conducting aerial surveillance pertaining to fisheries, and it carried a total of seven crew members along with three passengers, all of whom were ministry personnel.

Andy Sultan, a representative from the South Sulawesi rescue agency, stated in a video message that the ninth and tenth bodies were recovered early Friday morning.

Additionally, the agency confirmed via its Instagram account that a total of ten bodies had been discovered.

Local rescue teams had previously identified the wreckage of the aircraft scattered across various locations near Mount Pulusaraung within the Maros region, located approximately 1,500 kilometers northeast of the capital city, Jakarta.