It is the second time in 10 years that a plane has crashed into a Medan neighbourhood.
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Shortly after taking off from there, the plane ran into some sort of technical trouble; the pilot was apparently trying to turn back to the airport when the plane went down over one of Medan’s prime neighborhoods.
According to military Indonesian official, a plane was transporting military equipment from Medan.
The military set up command posts in Jakarta and Medan to help the victims’ families, Supriatna said.
Dwi Badarmanto, an air force spokesperson, said that crash had occurred a few minutes before midday after the plane took off from an air force base in the city en route to the remote Natuna islands. It plowed into a building that local media said contained shops and homes.
Eye witnesses said the 51-year-old plane had appeared to explode shortly before smashing into houses and a hotel.
A total of 101 passengers and 12 military crew members – comprising three pilots, one navigator and eight technicians – were on board the plane, Air Marshall Agus Supriatna told a TV channel in Medan.
Indonesian military spokesman Maj. It had traveled from the capital, Jakarta, and stopped at two locations before arriving at Medan.
Reuters notes that the “accidents put under a spotlight the safety record of Indonesia’s aviation and its aging aircraft”.
“It’s too early to say what caused today’s disaster, but it will again raise concerns about air safety in Indonesia, especially since it comes just half a year after the crash of QZ8501”, said Greg Waldron, Asia Managing Editor at Flightglobal.
In December, 2014, a passenger jet operated by AirAsia Indonesia, a subsidiary of the Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia, crashed into the Java Sea while carrying 162 people from Surabaya to Singapore, killing everyone onboard.
Janson Halomoan Sinagam, who had several relatives on board the plane, rushed to the crash site on Tuesday, desperate for information about his loved ones.
The Hercules transport plane was on its way from an air force base in Medan to Tanjung Pinang in Sumatra.
“We just want to know their fate”, he told MetroTV, a local station. There have been five fatal crashes involving air force planes since 2008, according to the Aviation Safety Network, which tracks aviation disasters.
“Evacuation of the victims of the Hercules must be prioritized”, President Joko Widodo said on Twitter.
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The Indonesian air force has suffered accidents before. In September of 2005, a Mandala Airlines Boeing 737 crashed into a residential neighborhood following a takeover from Ponia airport.
