Passenger’s body found in cabin of crashed plane

THE body of the passenger reported missing after the Air Niugini aircraft crash-landed into the sea near Chuuk airport on Friday was found on the cabin floor by United States navy divers.
Civil Aviation Minister Alfred Manase told The National yesterday the deceased was from Indonesia.
Efforts yesterday to get a comment from the Indonesian embassy in Port Moresby were unsuccessful.
Manase said the aircraft had landed “about 160 metres short of the Chuuk International Airport runway”.
“We will get to the bottom of this.”
In a statement yesterday, he said the aircraft was on the seabed 30 meters below the surface of the lagoon.
“Due to the contamination of the water from (the leaking) aircraft fuel, the search of the aircraft (was) delayed until the contamination dispersed to a level safe for the divers. The US Navy divers successfully extracted the deceased passenger from the aircraft,” he said.
The body was later taken to the Chuuk State Hospital.”
He said Federated State of Micronesia government had notified Indonesia through its Foreign Affairs Department.
Air Niugini is arranging the repatriation of the body once the next of kin had been notified.
“At 2.35pm on Tuesday (Oct 2), civilian divers contracted by FSM recovered the Flight Data Recorder (Black Box) from the aircraft. The diving will continue on Wednesday (today) to recover the cockpit voice recorder and other recording devices from the aircraft.
“The recorders will be transported to the PNG AIC (Accident Investigation Commission) laboratory in Port Moresby accompanied by FSM investigators for data downloading and analysis as soon as possible after all the recorders have been recovered.”