DHAKA: An Indonesian air force transport plane crashed Tuesday shortly after take-off, exploding in a fireball in a city residential area and killing at least 20 people.
Buildings near the crash zone were severely damaged and cars were reduced to flaming wrecks when the Hercules C-130 came down in the city of Medan on the western island of Sumatra.
A major rescue operation swung into action, with ambulances ferrying bodies from the accident site, and crowds of anxious residents gathering around a police cordon to get a look.
Novi, who works at an international school near the accident site and goes by one name, said she heard the aircraft and from her office window saw it flying very low before it crashed.
‘It was very scary,’ she told the media, adding she rushed to the site with her colleagues but the wreckage and plumes of smoke looked ‘very bad’.
Another local resident Januar, 26, said the plane appeared to be in trouble just before the accident.
‘I saw the plane from the direction of the airport and it was tilting already, then I saw smoke billowing.’
A hospital in Medan said 20 bodies had so far been brought in.
‘Twenty bodies have arrived at the hospital’s morgue,’ Sairi Saragih, spokeswoman for the Adam Malik hospital, told the media, reports The Jakarta Post.
A total of 12 crew members were on board the plane, transporting military supplies to airbases. Local media reported they consisted of three pilots, one navigator and eight technicians.
BDST: 1458 HRS, JUN 30, 2015
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