Jakarta, Indonesia – An Indonesian Boeing 737 passenger plane that crashed into a crowded neighborhood shortly after takeoff in the northern city of Medan on Monday killed 104 people aboard and 39 on the ground.
The operator, Mandala Airlines, said 13 people sitting in the rear survived the fire that engulfed the plane when it hit a busy road 500 yards from the airport in midmorning.
About 20 houses caught fire, and cars on the road, a major one to the airport, were ablaze. People with their clothes alight screamed for help, and drivers later described escaping their burning vehicles.
Several survivors said the plane, which was headed for the capital, Jakarta, made a shaky takeoff and crashed just as the flight attendant had finished the announcement about safety procedures.
“When the plane started to take off it was shaking,” Fredy Ismail, 53, a survivor who was treated at the Adam Malik hospital, was quoted as saying by an Indonesian Web news service.
Ismail said he was in seat 20E near the toilet in the tail of the plane. After the crash, a wall in the back of the plane cracked open and he managed to crawl through it before the fire broke out, he said. About 10 other people also escaped through the tail area, he said.
Mandala Airlines, a low-fare carrier partly owned by the Indonesian military, said the plane had 112 passengers and a crew of five. The airlines is a relatively small carrier and one of the oldest in Indonesia. Its fleet of 15 planes consists mainly of aging 737-200 jets like the one that crashed Monday, which was nearly 25 years old, the airline said. It was to be retired in 2016.
Among the passengers who died was Rizal Nurdin, governor of the province of North Sumatra. Medan, one of Indonesia’s most populous cities, is the provincial capital and serves as the gateway to the tsunami-ravaged region of Aceh to the north.
The director of the airline, Asril Tanjung, said the cause of the crash was being investigated. He said that foul play was not considered a likely cause of the crash.