LOC17:23
14:23 GMT
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 18 (KUNA) -- Indonesia on Sunday said it had located the wreckage of a missing surveillance airplane that vanished in the southern province of Sulawesi, recovering the body of one of the 10 passengers onboard the aircraft.
Rescuers early on Sunday managed to find scattered debris from the ATR 42-500 aircraft owned by the Indonesia Air Transport aviation company, including "large parts of the aircraft, suspected to be the fuselage of the plane," according to Sulawesi province's rescue agency official Andi Sultan, citing that one of the bodies of the victims has been recovered.
More than 1,000 rescuers have been sent to the site of the wreckage in a bid to locate the bodies of the remaining passengers, said rescue agency chief Mohammad Arif, adding that the cause of the crash has yet to be determined.
The plane was sent by Indonesia's Marine Affairs and Fisheries ministry to conduct air surveillance work when it went missing as the aircraft was flying over the ocean at a low altitude.
In 2015, a plane carrying 54 people crashed in Indonesia's mountainous region of Papua, killing all passengers onboard. (end)
aab.nam