TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - An Indonesian air force transport plane crashed Tuesday into a residential neighborhood in the country's third-largest city of Medan, killing at least 20 people.
Indonesian television broadcast images of the wreckage of the downed Hercules C-130, a crumpled burning car and a shattered building that local media said contained a spa. Smoke billowed from the site and several thousand people milled nearby.
Adam Malik hospital spokeswoman Sairi M. Saragih said the hospital has received 20 bodies so far. She said two people from the neighborhood were critically injured.
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," Supriatna said.
There were 17 military personnel on the plane, he said.
Medan resident Fahmi Sembiring said he saw the gray Hercules flying very low as he was driving.
"Flames and black smoke were coming from the plane in the air," he said.
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 Hercules accident is the second time in 10 years that an airplane has crashed into a Medan neighborhood. In September 2005, a Mandala Airlines Boeing 737 crashed into a crowded residential community shortly after takeoff 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.
AP
