15:32 AEST Tue Sep 6 2005
Investigators hunted for clues Tuesday as to why an Indonesian jetliner crashed seconds after takeoff, sifting through body parts and bits of flesh as they worked, as weeping families looked for loved ones among dozens of charred bodies laying outside a morgue.
At least 147 people were killed when the Boeing 737-200 crashed Monday in Indonesia's third largest city of Medan, 47 of them on the ground. But 16 passengers survived, including an 18-month-old boy who was shielded in his mother's arms.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was due to tour the crash site and visit survivors and relatives of victims later Tuesday.
Transport Minister Hatta Rajasa said it would be several weeks before the cause of the crash was known, but that investigators would be looking at why the Mandala Airlines plane failed to take off properly. The flight data recorder has been found, officials said.
Survivors said the jetliner started shaking violently when it reached an altitude of about 100 metres, veering sharply to the left and smashing onto a busy road. But some described a loud bang while the plane was still in flight, followed by a ball of fire.
Soon after dawn Tuesday, transportation experts arrived at the scene and began sifting through the charred wreckage, which was sprawled across the ash-covered street and a row of houses.
"We found the leg of a child and lots of burnt flesh," said air force Lt. Andri, who goes by a single name.
Rajasa asked families of the victims to come to the morgue to help identify the dead, saying forensic experts were having trouble because the bodies were so badly burnt.
"The families know what to look for," he told el-Shinta radio.
Outside the Adam Malik Hospital morgue, around 90 blackened bodies were laid out on yellow sheets under a tent. Sobbing relatives went from corpse to corpse looking for parents, sons and daughters. Others enlisted the help of people who claimed to have paranormal powers.
"I found my son-in-law because I remembered the trousers he was wearing," said Asiyah, 50. "But I cannot find my daughter. I will stay here until I do."
One the victims was a 3-year-old Japanese girl, family members said. The girl, Miyo Watanabe, lived in Jakarta with her Indonesian father and Japanese mother.
Thousands of people gathered to watch Monday, some standing on rooftops and buses, as firefighters struggled in a light drizzle to put out the blaze, which sent thick black smoke high into the air. Several houses and dozens of cars and motorcycles also were engulfed in flames.
"It happened very fast," survivor Rohadi Kamsah Sitepu, 35, told The Associated Press from his hospital bed. "There was an explosion outside the plane followed by huge flames inside the cabin. Then we crashed."
"I struggled to take off my seat belt and then ran through a hole in the fuselage, jumping over charred bodies scattered all over the road," said Sitepu, who escaped with minor bruises to his legs. "It's a miracle I survived. I can't believe it."
The plane was carrying 116 passengers and crew, airline officials said.
Sixteen survived, including an 18-month-old boy and his 32-year-old mother, Fritina, said Mandala spokeswoman Nining, who only goes by one name.
She's not talking much," said Fritina's father, Haji Muhammad Ersani, 62, after visiting the pair in hospital late Monday. "She's in shock. She only remembers that when the plane went down and split apart, she immediately got out and watched as her eldest son was on fire." The boy later died.
From Ninemsn News
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