Search and Rescue team finds plane wreckage

Mangled bird: An aerial shot on Friday shows the wreckage of the Casa 212-200 aircraft belonging to PT Nusantara Buana Air. The plane crashed in the forest of Langkat, North Sumatra, on Thursday morning en route to Kutacane, Aceh. Fourteen passengers and four crew members were on board the flight. (Antara)A joint Search and Rescue (SAR) team announced Friday it has found the wreckage of an ill-fated aircraft that went missing shortly after it left Medan's Polonia airport on Thursday morning.

According to initial observations, none of the people on board the plane, which was carrying 14 passengers and four crew members, had survived the crash.

Vice Marshall Dariyatmo from the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) said one of its helicopters had discovered the Nusantara Buana Airlines Casa 212 small passenger aircraft in a tree on a steep slope in a hilly area of Leuser National Park.

“We found it at 7 a.m., after searching the area for 30 minutes this morning,” Dariyatmo said.

He added that the aircraft had apparently hit a slope, because its nose was completely crushed, while most of its body remained intact.

“The aircraft was discovered on a slope at between 5,000 and 6,000 feet above sea level,” he said.

Dariyatmo said a land team were now 1.5 kilometers from the crash site, but could not get closer due to steepness of the terrain.

“We expect to be able to evacuate the plane as well as the remains of the passengers by this afternoon,” he said.