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A military plane has
crashed into a hotel in Medan, Indonesia, killing at least 30 people, according
to a local official.
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A military plane has crashed into a hotel in Medan,
Indonesia, killing at least 30 people, according to a local official.
"The latest
information we have is that 30 have died.... The number could go up," Hisar
Turnip, a spokesman for Indonesia's search and rescue agency, told Reuters.
Twelve crew members were
on board the plane, AP reported Indonesian Air Force operations commander Agus
Dwi Putranto as saying on local TV.
The number of passengers on board as yet
remains unknown.
Al-Jazeera correspondent Stephanie Dekker tweeted that
the pilots had asked to return to base after take-off as something was wrong
with the plane. After the plane turned around, it crashed, Dekker said. The
plane was heading to the remote Natuna Islands, military spokesman Fuad Basya
told Reuters.
Photos posted online on
social media show the scale of the destruction, with black smoke billowing from
the crash site, damaged cars and residential buildings in flames. Crowds of
onlookers have gathered at the site.
A crash happened in Medan
10 years ago, when a Mandala Airlines Boeing 737 crashed after take-off from
the city’s airport into a residential community, killing 143 people – 30 of
them on the ground.
With a population of 3.4
million, Medan is the third-biggest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta and
Surabaya.
The Lockheed C-130
Hercules is a four-engine military aircraft that can use even rudimentary
runways for takeoffs and landings. It is currently the principal tactical
airlifter for a lot over 60 nations worldwide, and there are 40 different
models of the heavy-duty plane currently in service.
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