Indonesian rescue teams on Sunday located the wreckage of a fisheries surveillance aircraft that went missing a day earlier in South Sulawesi, confirming at least one fatality among the 10 people on board, authorities said.
The turboprop plane, chartered by Indonesia’s Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, disappeared from radar on Saturday while en route to Makassar. Search crews later found debris scattered across the slopes of Mount Bulusaraung, a remote and fog covered area north of the provincial capital.
The discovery has shifted operations from search to recovery as investigators work to determine what caused the crash.
The aircraft, an ATR 42 500 operated by Indonesia Air Transport, lost contact with air traffic controllers at about 1:30 p.m. local time on Saturday near the Maros region, according to rescue officials.
On Sunday morning, helicopter crews spotted fragments of the aircraft at multiple locations on Mount Bulusaraung.
“Our helicopter teams first saw parts of the plane’s window at 7:46 a.m.,” Andi Sultan of the South Sulawesi search and rescue agency said. “Minutes later, larger sections believed to be the fuselage were found, along with the tail section at the base of the slope.”
Rescuers also identified the aircraft engine and passenger seats among the wreckage, Sultan added.
By Sunday afternoon, emergency teams recovered the body of one victim from a ravine roughly 200 meters below the mountain’s summit. The condition of the remaining nine people on board was still unknown.
The flight was carrying seven crew members and three government officials conducting aerial monitoring of fisheries. Authorities initially reported a different crew count before confirming the final number.
Search efforts were slowed by thick fog, steep terrain, and limited access to the crash site. The head of the regional rescue agency, Muhammad Arif Anwar, said more than 1,200 personnel were being mobilised to assist in the operation.
Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee said early findings indicate the aircraft struck the mountain while under pilot control.
“We classify this as controlled flight into terrain,” committee head Soerjanto Tjahjono told local media. “The aircraft was being flown normally and the impact was not deliberate.”
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Indonesia Air Transport said the plane had previously experienced an engineering issue but was declared fit to fly after repairs and test flights earlier in the week.
“There was a technical problem that was fixed and tested,” operations director Edwin said, noting that recent flights from Jakarta to Semarang and Yogyakarta had been completed without incident.
Flight tracking service Flightradar24 reported that the aircraft was flying at low altitude over water, limiting tracking coverage. The last signal was recorded about 20 kilometers northeast of Makassar airport.
The crash marks Indonesia’s first fatal accident involving an ATR 42 aircraft in more than ten years. In 2015, an ATR 42 300 operated by Trigana Air Service crashed in Papua, killing all 54 people on board.