At least 20 dead in Indonesian plane crash
At least 20 people were killed when an Indonesian air force Hercules C-130 plane crashed into a residential area in the city of Medan.
Adam Malik hospital spokeswoman Sairi M Saragih said the facility had received 20 bodies from the crash scene so far.
She said two people who were on the ground are critically injured.
Air force officials say the plane crashed two minutes after take-off.
Television footage showed the wreckage of the downed C-130 Hercules, a crumpled burning car and a shattered building that local media said contained a spa.
None of the bodies has been identified and it is unclear how many of the victims are military personnel and how many are civilians, Mr Sutedjo said, although one of the dead is thought to have been a child about one year old.
The crash of the transport plane occurred just two minutes after it took off from Soewondo air force base.
Air force chief Air Marshall Agus Supriatna said the pilot told the control tower that the plane needed to turn back because of engine trouble.
“The plane crashed while it was turning right to return to the airport,” Air Marshall Supriatna said.
Medan resident Fahmi Sembiring said he saw the grey Hercules flying very low.
“Flames and black smoke were coming from the plane in the air,” he added.
Mr Sembiring said he stopped not far from the crash site and saw several people rescued by police, security guards and bystanders.
Indonesia has a patchy aviation safety record. 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.
The C-130 accident is the second time in 10 years that a plane has crashed in Medan.
In September 2005, a Mandala Airlines Boeing 737 crashed into a crowded residential community shortly after takeo-ff from Medan’s Polonia airport, killing 143 people including 30 on the ground.
Medan, with about 3.4 million people, is the third most populous city in Indonesia after the capital, Jakarta, and Surabaya.
