A helicopter has crashed into thick jungle a few minutes after take off as it headed over Borneo’s vast palm oil plantations killing eight people on board
Eight people have been tragically killed after a helicopter crashed into dense jungle shortly after take-off.
The aircraft vanished from the radar five minutes into its journey over Borneo’s vast palm oil plantations on Thursday.
The Airbus H130 owned by PT Matthew Air Nusantara lost contact five minutes after it took off from Melawi district in West Kalimantan province. It was on its way to another palm oil plantation in Kubu Raya district.
Searchers later located the wreckage and recovered the bodies of the two crew members and six passengers in the forests in Sekadau district, according to the National Search and Rescue Agency and the Transportation Ministry.
All eight on board were men and one was a Malaysian national, civil aviation director general Lukman F. Laisa reportedly said in a statement. The bodies were taken to the provincial capital of Pontianak.
“The joint search and rescue team had successfully located the crash site of the aircraft and, based on information from the field, all passengers and crew members have been confirmed dead,” he said.
Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of about 270 million people, has been plagued by transportation accidents, including plane and helicopter crashes and ferry sinkings.
In January 11 people died after a plane crashed while approaching a mountainous region on Sulawesi island, in Indonesia.
The body of a man was retrieved from a ravine about 200m deep on the slope of Mount Bulusaraung, near scattered aircraft debris, said Muhammad Arif Anwar, who heads Makassar’s Search and Rescue Office.
Teams also found additional wreckage, including parts of the aircraft frame and passenger seats, and visually identified what is believed to be the engine of the turboprop ATR 42-500 that crashed on January 17, Anwar said.
The plane, operated by Indonesia Air Transport, was on its way from Yogyakarta on Indonesia’s main island of Java to Makassar, the capital city of South Sulawesi province, when it vanished from radar shortly after being instructed by air traffic control to correct its approach alignment.
