AN Indonesian search and rescue team has recovered all 18 bodies from a plane that crashed in remote jungle, three days after the accident, an official said.
The Nusantara Buana Air Casa 212 turboprop plane went down on Thursday morning in the mountainous Bohorok area, about 70 kilometres northwest of the city of Medan in North Sumatra.
"All bodies have been recovered and sent to a hospital for an identification process,'' provincial search and rescue team chief Daryatmo told reporters, adding that most of the victims were found sitting in their seats.
The plane was caught by the forest canopy as it crashed, leaving it lying on the jungle floor with the ends of its wings torn off and its cockpit badly damaged, but the cabin section largely intact.
"The nose of the aircraft was completely destroyed as it hit a hill ... the engines were also dislodged from the body,'' he added.
After battling bad weather and rough terrain for two consecutive days, rescuers reached the crash site on Saturday and found all 14 passengers, including four children, and four crew were dead.
"Most of the victims suffered from very strong blows to their head, chest and other parts of the body as the plane crashed,'' a doctor at Adam Malik hospital in Medan where bodies were being identified said.
Relatives of the victims lambasted the government for its slow response. A victim's mother reported that her daughter had called her from the plane hours after the crash.
The sprawling Indonesian archipelago relies heavily on air transport and has a poor aviation record.
Thursday's crash came after a helicopter chartered by US giant Newmont Mining crashed last Sunday in central Indonesia, killing two people on board.
Earlier in September, an Australian and a Slovak pilot were killed when their small Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft, which was carrying fuel and food to a remote area in Papua province, went down.
Another small aircraft, which was also transporting supplies to remote villages for a Christian organisation in Papua, crashed last week, killing its American pilot and two passengers
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