Indonesian authorities are set to call off the search for victims in the deadly crash of a military transport plane into a residential area on Tuesday. The military Hercules C-130B crashed shortly after takeoff, killing everyone on board as well as dozens more on the ground.
Military spokesman Fuad Basya said that with no more bodies being recovered since the day before, the search and rescue operations are set to be concluded, according to Reuters.
"We have not found any bodies since yesterday, so hopefully, we will be able to finish the search-and-rescue operation today," he said.
The death toll from the incident has steadily increased since the crash, reaching as high as 141 as of Wednesday morning. Basya, however, states that the official number of casualties still stand at 135.
The American-made Hercules C-130B cargo plane was carrying numerous passengers when it crashed, with Air force spokesman Dwi Bandarmanto stating that there had been 122 passengers in the aircraft, in addition to the 12 crew members, The Washington Post reported.
"We had the list of the manifest and it was changing a lot," Bandarmanto said. "There were some children who were not named on the manifest, maybe five to eight children."
The deadly incident puts an inconvenient truth into light, as the government of Indonesia has admitted that the C-130 has already been in service for more than 50 years, according to The Jakarta Post.
"It was an old aircraft, already 50 years, but it was about to undergo a retrofit. In all we now have 20 Hercules airplanes," Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla stated.
