• published: 30 Jun 2015
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July 1st 2015 The death toll from the crash of an air force transport plane in the Indonesian city of Medan jumped to more than 140 on Wednesday ( June 30th 2015), indicating a growing list of victims from the neighborhood where the plane went down. North Sumatra police major A Tarigan told TVOne that 141 bodies have been recovered from the rubble of a residential area where the C-130 Hercules crashed shortly after takeoff on Tuesday. The air force says there were 122 people on the plane including military personnel and their families. The crash of the aircraft, which had been in service since 1964, occurred only two minutes after it took off from Soewondo air force base in Medan. It plowed into a building that local media said contained shops and homes. Witnesses said it was shooting flames and smoke before crashing. Air force chief Air Marshal Agus Supriatna has said the pilot told the control tower that he needed to turn back because of engine trouble and the plane crashed while turning right to return to the airport. Many passengers were relatives of military personnel. Hitching rides on military planes to reach remote destinations is common in Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago that spans three time zones. Indonesia has a patchy civil aviation safety record and its cash-strapped air force has also suffered a series of accidents. Between 2007 and 2009, the European Union barred Indonesian airlines from flying to Europe because of safety concerns. The country's most recent civilian airline disaster was in December, when an AirAsia jet with 162 people on board crashed into the Java Sea en route from Surabaya to Singapore. There have been five fatal crashes involving air force planes since 2008, according to the Aviation Safety Network, which tracks aviation disasters. Security forces and rescue workers search the wreckage of an Indonesian military C-130 Hercules transport plane after it crashed into a residential area in the North Sumatra city of Medan, Indonesia on Monday. Indonesia Transport Plane crash: More than 100 feared dead All 113 people on board a Hercules C-130 military cargo aircraft were feared killed when the military plane crashed into a residential area in Medan city on Indonesia's Sumatra island on Tuesday ( June 30th 2015), media reported. A total of 101 passengers and 12 military crew members comprising three pilots, one navigator and eight technicians were on board the plane, Air Marshall Agus Supriatna told a TV channel in Medan. The air force chief said 23 bodies have been identified in Adam Malik hospital in Medan from 49 body bags received by the hospital as of Tuesday afternoon, Xinhua news agency reported. "In the PAUM (Military Air Transport Flight) mission, besides carrying logistics, the plane also carried troops transferred to serve in several regions along with their family members. We are yet to have information on how many family members each trooper had carried along in the plane," Agus said. However, media reports said the plane was also carrying civilian passengers who were not from military families, and who were picked up from airports it stopped over prior to the crash. Agus said the plane, serving Malang air force base, departed from Halim Perdanakusuma airport in Jakarta early Tuesday morning and made stopovers in Pekanbaru, Riau and Dumai to pick up troops being transferred to other regions. He said the plane was enroute to transport logistics and personnel to Tanjung Pinang and Natuna islands. An official at Indonesia's Search and Rescue (Basarnas) Medan branch told Xinhua earlier in the day that manifest of the crashed plane indicates that the plane was boarded by 55 persons. That figure did not include 12 crew members operating the ill-fated plane. According to Agus, the plane's pilot asked for RTB (Return to Base) procedure to air traffic control officers before the crash, which happened shortly before noon. He said the request suggested that a problem had occurred in the plane. Indonesian military has set up a team to investigate the plane crash. Agus said the plane was manufactured in 1964 and served the air forces' 32 Squadron based in Malang, East Java. Indonesia has 28 C-130 Hercules planes in service at the moment. The latest crash in Medan is one of several involving military aircraft since 2009: April 2015: An F-16 fighter jet catches fire as it takes off from an airbase in Jakarta. March 2015: Two air force planes from an Indonesian aerobatics team crash during a practise session. November 2013: An army helicopter crashes near the Indonesian-Malaysian border, killing 13 people. August 2013: A door from a training helicopter falls onto a residential area of Jakarta. 2012: Nine people killed after an Indonesian air force plane crashed into a housing complex in Jakarta. 2009: Military transport plane carrying troops and their families crashed in Java, killing 98 people.