Six Indonesians killed in air crash in Hong Kong

Six Indonesians killed in air crash in Hong Kong

JAKARTA (Agencies): Six Indonesians were killed and six others
injured when a Hercules transport plane belonging to the private
operator Pelita Air Service plunged into the harbor at Kai Tak
airport, officials said.

In Jakarta, a Pelita spokesman confirmed that the plane had
been on its way home to Jakarta on Friday after flying refugees
from Hong Kong to Vietnam for the United Nations.

"Six personnel are dead and six others are injured and are
being treated at a hospital," the spokesman told The Jakarta
Post.

He said all 12 people on board were crew members. The six dead
were identified as captains Soenoto and Adisuryo, flight engineer
Bambang Aryono, load master Zarmis, mechanic Eldon Karta Siahaan
and copilot Bambang Sukomartono.

Relatives of the crew waited in anguish into the early hours
at Pelita's command post at Halim Perdanakusuma airport on Friday
for news of the fate of their loved ones. Some could not stand
the suspense and sent their neighbors instead.

Many broke into tears, some hysterically, when they found out
that their relatives were among the casualties.

The airliner arranged to fly the wives and relatives of all
the victims to Hong Kong yesterday. They are expected to be flown
back to Jakarta with the six injured and the bodies today.

In Hong Kong, a government information service statement said
that the four-engine plane crashed at 7:15 p.m. on Friday (11:15
GMT). Its last contact with air traffic controllers was its
clearance for take off, according to AFP.

"Shortly after take off it veered to the right and entered the
water," Hong Kong government deputy director of aviation Richard
Siegel said.

The propeller-driven aircraft, which had landed in Hong Kong
after being used earlier to forcibly repatriate Vietnamese boat
people to Hanoi, was about 60 meters above the runway when it
veered off course and slammed into the water of a typhoon shelter
in Victoria Harbor.

Albert Chan, a fire department senior divisional commander,
said at a briefing that the plane "was broken into a few pieces."
Only part of the aircraft's tail and wing were visible after it
crashed.

It was being leased by HeavyLift Cargo Airlines Ltd, a unit of
Britain's Trafalgar House Plc.

The airport, with its single runway jutting into the harbor
off densely populated Kowloon, was closed for two hours following
the accident. Fifty-two outbound flights and 39 incoming flights
were delayed and two others canceled.

A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said it was too
early to speculate on the cause of the accident, and that the
plane's in-flight recorder would have to be salvaged as part of
an investigation into the crash.

The fatal crash is the third time in six years an aircraft has
skated off the single runway at Hong Kong's aging airport and
into the harbor, according to Reuters.

Last year a Taiwanese China Air Lines plane skidded off Hong
Kong's runway and plunged into the sea in bad weather. However
the plane only partially sank and there were no serious injuries.

In 1989, a Trident operated by China's CAAC plunged off the
runway into Kowloon Bay in 1988, killing six crew and one
passenger.
Cramped Kai Tak, which dates from before World War Two, has one
of the world's busiest runways, sandwiched between the harbor and
the teeming high-rise housing estates of Kowloon City.

But the airport has remained relatively free of serious
accidents. (als/rms/emb)