The wreckage of a Russian passenger airliner
The wreckage of a Russian passenger airliner that went missing during a demonstration flight over Indonesia has been located in a mountainous area, a local official said Thursday.
Teams searching for the plane spotted debris from the Sukhoi Superjet 100 at a height of about 5,800 feet (1,800 meters) on the side of Mount Salak, a volcano south of Jakarta, said Daryatmo, head of the National Search and Rescue Agency.
Daryatmo, who like many Indonesians only uses one name, said the Sukhoi logo had been identified amid the wreckage.
No information was immediately available about the passengers who were on board the plane, which disappeared off radar screens on Wednesday.
Rescue workers on the ground have not yet been able to reach the wreckage, but the Search and Rescue Agency is dispatching a helicopter to the site, Daryatmo said.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia said in a brief televised address that the Russian plane appeared to have crashed into Mount Salak.
An image released by the Indonesian military showed bits of debris strewn across a patch of steep mountainside stripped bare of the thick vegetation covering the surrounding area.
The cause of the crash remained unclear.
There were conflicting reports about the number of people on the Sukhoi jet, Russia's newest civilian airliner, when it went down. The confusion seemed to stem from uncertainty about whether everybody on the passenger list actually boarded the plane.