Roundup: Indonesia mulls over evaluating conditions of military arsenals after old military plane crash

Following the fatal crash that killed all people onboard the Air Forces' C-130 Hercules plane in Indonesia's North Sumatra province on Tuesday, Indonesian military was told to evaluate condition of military vehicles and equipment as part of them were in services for decades.

The order was issued by Indonesian President Joko Widodo when he presided over a ceremony to commemorate birthday of national police on Wednesday.

"Basic ultimate arsenal management reorganization must be carried out by the military. In the future we must not merely buy the weapon (from foreign producers). We must be able to involve national defense industry in the engineering, production, operation and maintenance of military's weapons," the president said in the ceremony.

Besides issuing his order, the president also conveyed the nation's deepest condolence to family of the victim perished in the plane crash, ordering the authority to further investigate the origin of the crash.

The C-130 Hercules plane that carried logistics and passengers crashed in Medan was manufactured in 1964, among 28 units operated by the Air Forces, making Indonesia the largest operator of C-130 Hercules plane in southern hemisphere.

During its service with Indonesian Air Forces since 1964, 8 crashes were recorded by C-130 Hercules military cargo plane, claiming hundreds of military personnel and civilian lives.

A member of Indonesian president's communication teamTeten Masduki said that results of the evaluation would be used as inputs to determine the next steps to rejuvenate and modernize the military's weapons.

"The president is committed to make procurement of military's main weaponry equipment (alutsista) be directed to support national defense industry so as to make the nation fully controls the readiness of the whole alutsista and addressing zero accident regime in the usage of the alutsista," Teten said in a statement on Wednesday.

Indonesian Air Forces Spokesperson Dwi Badarmanto said on Tuesday that the ill-fated plane was boarded by 110 passengers and 12 crews when the crash took place. No survivor was reported among them.

A trouble with the plane prior to the crash was confirmed by Indonesian Air Forces Commander Air Marshall Agus Supriatna, indicated from request of the pilot to return to base two minutes after taking off from Soewondo air forces base in Medan.

The plane hit a housing cluster in Jamin Ginting road, Padang Bulan area located in downtown the city. After the impact, the plane exploded and burned with all passengers and crews inside the plane. A number of people on the ground were also believed to have been killed after the crash. Local media put the death toll at at least 141 people.

Sairi Saragih, an official at Adam Malik hospital in Medan told Xinhua on Wednesday that the hospital has received 142 body bags contained bodies and charred body parts from the plane crash.

As of Wednesday afternoon 71 bodies have been identified by police's Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) which would continue the identification process until the next few days, reports said.

Head of Indonesia's Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) Medan chapter Rochmali said on Wednesday that 105 bodies recovered from the plane's burned and mangled wreckages were remained intact.

The plane wreckages have been removed from the crash site by joint military forces, transferred to Soewondo air forces base for further investigation process.

The identified bodies would be transferred to airports where they were picked up by the Hercules plane that eventually crashed in Medan.

The plane that serves Air Forces' 32 Squadron based in Malang, East Java, departed from Jakarta's Halim Perdanakusumah on Tuesday morning, loaded by logistics for military base in Natuna island.

Before the crash that took place at noon in the day, the plane made stopovers in Pekanbaru and Dumai in Riau province. Endi