‘No sign of survivors’ at Sukhoi SuperJet-100 wreck site

Rescuers south of Indonesia’s Jakarta have found several bodies at the mountain site of the wreckage of a Russian Sukhoi SuperJet-100, which dropped off the radar during a demonstration flight on Wednesday.

Indonesian officers have been able to access the steep slope by foot and in military helicopters.

Due to the remoteness of the site, bodies will need to be placed in nets and hauled up into hovering choppers by rope. Experts say identifying the bodies will take quite some time as they have been fragmented.

Earlier the country’s National Search and Rescue Agency confirmed they had found the aircraft wreckage.

"Rescuerson the helicopters could clearly see the wreckage located at the top of Mount Salak," including the blue-and-white of the aircraft maker, says Gagah Prakoso, a spokesman for the Agency.

"There is no sign of any of the passengers," he said, adding the helicopters are trying to move closer to the wreckage now.

The scattered debris of the Russian-made plane was spotted on a cliff of Salak, a volcano in Java's west, around at the coordinates, where it disappeared from the screens. 

Ali Umri Lubis, a spokesman for a military airbase, says the plane was spotted in the Cijeruk area, near Mount Salak, close to the city of Bogor in West Java. The plane went down at an elevation of about 1,500 meters (5,000 feet).

Three helicopters and over 600 rescuers resumed a search operation around Salak on Thursday morning. Before that Indonesian authorities still expressed hope that the plane had made an emergency landing. But the capital's Emergency Agency chief, Ketut Parwa, admitted that if there had been an emergency landing, some information via the radio or phone calls would have been received by now.

The 48 people onboard included Indonesian businessmen, Russian embassy officials and journalists. Earlier reports suggested the plane took off with 50 people, but then it proved two Indonesian men had decided to skip the demonstration flight.

Relatives of the missing passengers started streaming to Halim Perdana Kusuma Airport in Jakarta on Wednesday night. The shattering news of the found wreckage reduced many to tears.

Russia's first all-new passenger jet since the fall of the Soviet Union disappeared from radar screens south of the capital Jakarta on Wednesday, 21 minutes into what was meant to be a brief demonstration flight. The vehicle was taking part in an international air show in Indonesia when it got lost around Salakat about 0800 GMT first descending to 6,000 feet.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has ordered a special commission comprising members of the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Industry and the airplane manufacturer to investigate the incident.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced that Indonesian aviation experts will work together with Russians to I investigate the incident.

Photo by Marina Lystseva (fotografersha.livejournal.com)

Pilots checking maps before takeoff at the Rescue HQ in Jakarta on May 10, 2012 (Image by Sergey Dolya)

Relatives of passengers of the missing Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft wait for information at Halim Perdana Kusuma Airport in Jakarta May 9, 2012. (Reuters / Supri)

The relative of a passenger of a Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft, which crashed on Wednesday, cries while awaiting news of her relative at Halim Perdana Kusuma Airport in Jakarta May 10, 2012. (Reuters / Supri)