Rescuers retrieve one body from Indonesian fisheries plane crash, nine remain missing

JAKARTA, Jan 18 — Indonesian authorities on Sunday confirmed they have located the wreckage of a fisheries surveillance aircraft that went missing in South Sulawesi, recovering the body of one of the 10 people on board, while nine others remain unaccounted for.

The ATR 42-500 turboprop, operated by Indonesia Air Transport, lost contact with air traffic control at around 1.30 pm local time on Saturday near the Maros area. The aircraft had seven crew members and three passengers, all staff from the Marine Affairs and Fisheries Ministry, and was chartered to conduct aerial fisheries monitoring.

Officials initially reported eight crew members on board but later corrected the figure. The plane was en route from Yogyakarta to Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi, when communication was lost.

Rescue teams on Sunday morning discovered aircraft debris scattered across the slopes of Mount Bulusaraung in the Maros region. South Sulawesi rescue agency official Andi Sultan said helicopter crews first spotted window debris at 7.46 am, followed minutes later by larger aircraft sections believed to be part of the fuselage. The aircraft’s tail was also seen at the base of the mountain slope.

Search and rescue personnel have been dispatched to multiple locations where wreckage was found, though operations are being hampered by thick fog and rugged terrain. Later in the afternoon, rescuers recovered a body from a ravine about 200 metres below the mountain’s peak. The fate of the remaining nine occupants is still unknown.

South Sulawesi rescue agency head Muhammad Arif Anwar said efforts are now focused on locating the missing victims, with around 1,200 personnel set to be involved in the search.

The cause of the crash has yet to be determined. National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) chief Soerjanto Tjahjono said preliminary findings indicate the aircraft struck the mountain slope in what investigators describe as a “controlled flight into terrain”.

“The pilot was still in control of the aircraft, and the crash was not intentional,” he said, adding that investigations are ongoing.

Flight tracking service Flightradar24 reported that the aircraft was flying at low altitude over the ocean, limiting tracking coverage, with the final signal recorded about 20 km northeast of Makassar airport.

The ATR 42-500, built by Franco-Italian manufacturer ATR, can carry between 42 and 50 passengers. This marks the first fatal ATR 42 crash in Indonesia in over a decade, following a 2015 Trigana Air Service accident in Papua that claimed 54 lives. — Reuters