Jakarta: Rescuers who on Thursday spotted on a mountain slope in Indonesia the wreckage of a Sukhoi Superjet 100 that went missing a day earlier with around 50 people on board said there was no sign of any survivor, even as Russia opened a criminal case into the accident.
Though some bodies were found, the exact number was not disclosed, Xinhua reported.
The bodies would be taken out on Friday and a search launched for the black box, said Gagah Prakoso, spokesman of the Search and Rescue Agency, at the Halim Perdana Kusuma Air Force base. "The evacuation is planned tomorrow (Friday)," he said.
Sukhoi Civil Aircraft president Vladimir Prisyazhnyuk said the plane carried 45 people, including eight Russians, a Frenchman, an American, two Italians and 33 Indonesians.
The plane was seen by rescuers from air on the slope of Mount Gunung Salak in Bogor region of west Java.
Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said a criminal case - ordered by new Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev - has been opened.
"Investigators will have to analyse the procedure of the crew's training before the flight and to assess technical conditions of the airplane itself before it left Russia," he said.
Technicians who prepared the plane for the flight and employees of the Sukhoi Civil Aircraft (SCA) responsible for the Superjet 100 project would be questioned, he said.
The Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100, on a demonstration flight over Indonesia, went missing on Wednesday.
Indonesian Transport Ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan had said the plane took off from Indonesian air base Halim Perdana Kusuma in East Jakarta.
It lost contact at 2.25 pm while trying to descend from 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet near a small airport in Bogor.
The Superjet 100 carried out two demonstration flights in the Indonesian capital.
It arrived in Jakarta as part of a demonstration tour of six Asian countries. It has been to Myanmar, Pakistan and Kazakhstan and was due to visit Laos and Vietnam.
The Superjet 100 is a medium-haul passenger aircraft developed by Sukhoi in cooperation with US and European aviation corporations, including Boeing, Snecma, Thales, Messier Dowty, Liebherr Aerospace and Honeywell.
IANS
First Published: Thursday, May 10, 2012, 08:50