A rescue team found bodies but no survivors yesterday in the wreckage of a Russian passenger jet that crashed into a volcano in Indonesia during an exhibition flight with 45 people on board.
The Superjet 100 aircraft went missing on Wednesday about 40 miles (60km) south of Jakarta. Among the victims were Indonesian reporters and business- men, eight Russians, two Italians, a French citizen and an American, said head of Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, Vladimir Prisyazhnyuk.
Radio contact with the aircraft was lost in the middle of a promotional sales flight after it dropped to 6,000ft near the dormant Mount Salak volcano. Sukhoi, which had hoped to sell 42 of the planes to Indonesia, is part of the state-owned United Aircraft Corporation, an umbrella corporation created by Russian leader Vladimir Putin in 2006 to reorganise and revive the country’s aircraft industry.– (Reuters)