Twelve survive plane crash in Indonesian mountains

INDONESIA: Twelve people survived when a plane with 102 on board crashed in heavy rain into the mountains of Indonesia's Sulawesi island, officials said after an overnight search for the wreckage of the budget airline jet. Ninety people were killed in the Adam Air crash, the second transport disaster this week in the sprawling archipelago.

"The plane's location has been found and 12 people from the 102 people on board have survived," said airline spokesman Hartono. "We are going to evacuate them to Makassar," he said, referring to South Sulawesi's provincial capital. First Air Marshal Eddy Suyanto, commander of Hasanuddin air base in Makassar, told Radio Elshinta an air force plane assigned to search for the Boeing 737-400 had seen the wreckage.

"The plane is in ruins. The plane was found around 20 kilometres from Polewali (town) in the mountains. The weather is clear," Suyanto said. Meanwhile Indonesia intensified its search for survivors nearly five days after a ferry carrying more than 400 people sank off the coast off the country's main island of Java.

Jakarta, Tuesday, Reuters