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Remains of 58 air crash victims sent back home
THE JAKARTA POST , Jakarta | Fri, 05/22/2009 1:23 PM | Headlines
The Air Force deployed six aircraft to transport the bodies of Wednesday's air crash victims to their hometowns across the country.
The six aircraft included three Hercules, one Casa, one CN and one Fokker, according to Antara news agency.
Madiun Air Force Base chief Air Commodore Bambang Samoedra led a military ceremony Thursday morning to officially send off the bodies of the victims.
Hundreds of the victims' family members attended the ceremony.
Several other victims had already been sent to their hometowns across various parts of Java on Wednesday.
At least 101 people were killed when a C-130 Hercules plane carrying 112 passengers, troops, crew members and their families caught fire and nose-dived into a residential neighborhood in Magetan, East Java, on Wednesday morning.
Air Force spokesman Air Commodore Bambang Sulistyo told detik.com news portal the 101 fatalities included two residents from Ngeplak village where the plane crashed.
Fifteen others suffered from both severe and light injuries, 10 of whom are still being treated at Iswahyudi and Dr. Soedono hospitals.
The ill-fated military transport plane, built in 1980, was on a routine flight from the capital, Jakarta, but crashed before it could reach its destination, an Air Force base in East Java, en route to Biak, Papua.
Five houses in the village were damaged.
As of Thursday evening, "12 victims could not be identified due to their poor and deformed condition," Samoedra said.
On Thursday afternoon, the bodies of 10 victims arrived at Sultan Hasanuddin Air Force Base in Makassar, South Sulawesi, welcomed by 100 family members.
The moment the Hercules touched down, some family members started to cry and when the bodies of the victims were transported from the plane, family members ran crying toward the coffins.
Of the 10 victims, six were servicemen and four were civilians.
One victim was also flown to Timika, Papua, on another plane.
The Hercules continued its journey to Kendari, South Sulawesi, to transport one victim to Ambon, and two more victims to Maluku.
In a related development, the sending of First Pvt. Bayu Purwanto, one of the victims from Penajam Paser Utara regency,in East Kalimantan, was delayed Thursday due to technical problems with the plane at Halim Perdanakusumah Airport in Jakarta.
Air Commodore Harsono, 50, commander of the National Air Defence Sector in Biak, Papua, the plane crash victim with the highest military rank, was buried in Klaten, Central Java, on Thursday.
Harsono was buried together with his wife Dathy Wulandari, 42, who also died in the crash.
The body of Second Sgt. Baiq Sri Rautdhatul Adawiyah, 20, was collected by her relatives at Selaparang Airport in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara.
Cries and weeping were heard when the body was unloaded from the Hercules plane.
Adawiyah, the 10th of 11 siblings of the couple, H.L Mathur and Baiq Indah, had just completed her study at the air force intelligence school in Jakarta.
Adawiyah had just received a new posting in Makassar.
"Adawiyah died on the way to Makassar to begin duties in her new job," said Lt. Col. I Made Susila, chief of Rembiga Airport in Mataram.
Indra Harsaputra, Wahyoe Boediwardhana, Nurni Sulaiman, Andi Hajramurni, Slamet Susanto and Panca Nugraha contributed to this article.
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