According to AP, 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, 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.
Yahoo News reports that, 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 on Sumatra, one of Indonesia’s main islands. 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.
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. (AP, Yahoo News. Image: AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara).