The mother of a passenger aboard a plane that crashed in a remote area of Indonesia says her daughter has called her, raising hopes of finding survivors as rescuers struggled to reach the site.
Search and rescue teams had been unable to reach the accident site in a mountainous area of Sumatra island by Friday afternoon, more than 30 hours after the plane carrying 18 people crashed.
Rosmawati, the mother of passenger Samsidar Yusni, 27, said her daughter had called her Thursday night.
“At 10.00 pm, my daughter telephoned me. She just cried. Her words were so unclear. After that the line was lost and the telephone disconnected,” Rosmawati said.
The Casa 212 turboprop plane, carrying 14 passengers including four children, and four crew, went down on Thursday after departing Medan city, in Sumatra, for the nearby province of Aceh.
But the commercial flight run by Nusantara Buana Air sent a distress signal soon after and crashed at 1,100 metres in the mountainous Bohorok area about 70 kilometres north-west of Medan.
Three search-and-rescue teams left Medan Thursday night but two turned back because of the difficult mountainous jungle terrain and bad weather.
Categories: Indonesia