Military plane crash in Indonesia kills 98

An Indonesian military plane carrying troops and their families crashed into a row of houses and burst into flames yesterday, killing at least 98 people, the latest in a string of accidents plaguing the beleaguered air force.

Black smoke billowed in the air as soldiers carried the injured past the burning wreckage of the C-130 Hercules - its tail resting upside down in a rice paddy and the rest of the charred fuselage scattered over several hundred meters. Military spokesman Sagom Tamboen said the transport plane, built in 1980, plunged to the ground near an air force base in East Java province, slamming into a residential neighborhood and then skidding into a field.

It was not clear what caused the crash, but several witnesses described seeing its right wing fall off while it was still in the air. "I heard at least two big explosions and saw flashes of fire inside the plane," Lamidi, a 41-year-old peasant who was working in a nearby rice field and ran for cover, told The Associated Press. "The wing snapped off and fell to the ground." The plane was carrying at least 109 passengers and crew, including troops and their families, when it went down in Geplak, a village 520 kilometers east of the capital, Jakarta. At least 10 children were among them.

At least 98 people were killed, including 14 children, two on the ground and 15 others were injured, said Bambang Samudro, chief of the military air base in Magetan. Many of the injured suffered severe burns. An air marshal - the air force's equivalent to a general - and his wife were also killed in the crash.

"The evacuation process is still underway and I predict that there are still some bodies trapped inside the wreckage," air force spokesman Bambang Sulistio told Agence France-Presse.

It was the second accident involving an Indonesian Air Force Hercules in two weeks, after one overshot the runway of Wamena airport in Papua on May 10. One person was reportedly injured in that incident.

"Before the plane crashed, I heard several blasts and then it started wobbling from left to right," 2nd Pvt. Saputra said from his bed at the air force hospital. "It crashed to the ground and I was pinned under several people. I heard screaming before losing consciousness."

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono expressed his "deepest condolences" to the families of those killed but urged against jumping to conclusions about what caused the crash. "At this opportunity, in the name of the government and personally, I extend my deepest condolences to the families of the victims," Yudhoyono told reporters.

Military chief Gen. Djoko Santoso said there was fog on the ground at the time of the crash because of a "temperature change" but did not say if this was the cause of the accident. Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono complained that the military's budget was insufficient to ensure minimum maintenance of aircraft. "Ideally, the maintenance cost should be 20 to 25 percent of the overall military budget but at present it's below 10 percent," he told reporters.

The country's air force, long under funded and handicapped by a recently lifted U.S. ban on weapons sales, has suffered a series of accidents, including a Fokker 27 plane that crashed into an airport hangar last month, killing all 24 onboard.

The air force has operated C-130s - the backbone of its transport wing - since the early 1960s, when it received a batch of 10 from the U.S. in exchange for the release of a CIA bomber pilot shot down in 1958 while supporting an anti-government mutiny. About 40 more were delivered over the next 20 years, many secondhand and provided by U.S. before the Clinton administration imposed sanctions on military deliveries because of violence that broke out during East Timor's break for independence.