Indonesia Plane Crash: All 10 Bodies Finally Found on Mount Bulusaraung
By: Abudu Olalekan
Tragedy strikes again in Indonesia as rescuers pull the last two bodies from a crashed charter plane on Mount Bulusaraung. Full story on the fisheries ministry flight gone wrong, black box clues, and why air travel here stays risky.
It was supposed to be a routine flight. A turboprop chartered by Indonesia’s fisheries ministry, loaded with seven crew members and three civil servants. They were heading to Makassar, that bustling city on Sulawesi island. But Saturday hit different. Air traffic control lost contact. Then, nothing. The plane slammed into Mount Bulusaraung. Steep slopes. Jagged rocks. No survivors expected.
Rescuers scrambled. Tough terrain slowed them down. Rain poured. Fog clung like a bad dream. By Sunday, debris everywhere. Fuselage chunks. Tail pieces shattered. Windows smashed on the mountaintop. Heartbreaking.
Eight bodies pulled out early this week. Search teams pushed through mudslides and cliffs. Exhausted, but determined. Then Friday came. Local rescue boss Andi Sultan broke the news. The last two found. All ten accounted for now. “We’ll get them down soon,” he said. Relief mixed with grief.
Picture it. These folks – crew pros, government workers – just doing their jobs. Connecting islands in this massive archipelago. Indonesia stretches across thousands of specks in Southeast Asia. Air travel? It’s the lifeline. But man, the safety record sucks. Crashes pile up like storm debris.
Take last September. Helicopter lifts off from South Kalimantan. Six passengers, two crew. Barely airborne. Crashes. Everyone gone. Two weeks later, another chopper in remote Papua, Ilaga district. Four dead. Blades fail or what? No one knows for sure yet.
Back to this one. Black box spotted Wednesday. That little orange beacon could spill secrets. Why’d it drop short of landing? Engine hiccup? Pilot error? Weather betrayal? The search agency in Makassar holds it tight. Investigations rolling.
Families waiting below. Villages mourning. Reportersroom got word from the ground – choppers ferrying bodies out. DNA tests ahead, probably. IDs tricky up there.
Indonesia’s skies feel cursed sometimes. Remember the big ones? Sriwijaya Air plunged into the sea years back. 62 souls lost. Lion Air’s Boeing Max nightmare. 189 gone. Regulators promise fixes. New rules. Better training. But incidents keep coming. Why? Old planes? Sketchy maintenance? Overloaded routes?
This crash hits the fisheries ministry hard. Those civil servants? Inspectors maybe, checking fish stocks or ports. Routine stuff turned fatal. Crew from a local operator – names trickling out now. Captain had thousands of hours, they say. Doesn’t make it easier.
Rescuers deserve medals. Slipped on wet rocks. Helicopters battled winds. Drones scouted ahead. Finally, closure. All ten homeward bound, sorta.
What’s next? Black box decoded in Jakarta labs. Preliminary report soon. Ministry vows review. Aviation chief calls it “tragic but isolated.” Yeah, right. Pilots whisper about it in cockpits. Passengers eye wings nervously.
Sulawesi’s no stranger to disasters. Earthquakes shake it. Volcanoes rumble. Now this. Mount Bulusaraung looms silent again. Wreckage cleared eventually. Nature reclaims.
For the families, no mountain high enough to stop the pain. Prayers in mosques. Candles flicker. Indonesia pushes on. Flights resume tomorrow. Risk accepted, like waves on the sea.
Officials urge calm. “Aviation safe overall,” they claim. Stats show improvements. Fatalities down since 2018 mandates. Still, ten lives. Ten stories cut short.
