AUTHORITIES have retrieved the remains of three of the four occupants of the Cessna plane that crashed near the crater of Mayon Volcano in Albay last month.
Cedric Daep, chief of Albay’s Cedric Albay’s Public Safety and Emergency Management Office, said the three cadavers were brought down from the slope of Mayon at 7:35 p.m Wednesday, and 1:35 a.m. and past 3 a.m. yesterday.
Daep declined to say whose remains were brought down but said the cadavers were taken to a funeral homes.
On board the Cessna 340A were pilot Rufino James Crisostomo, crewman Joel Martin, and Australian passengers Simon Chipperfield and Karthi Santanan, all from the Energy Development Corporation, a leading renewable energy producer in the country.
“There’s one left we’re trying to bring down,” said Daep, adding the retrieval team was trying to complete the retrieval mission yesterday.
“As of 3:13 a.m. (Thursday), a total of three bodies from the Cessna 340A crash have so far been dropped off in Barangay Anoling (in Camalig town, Albay),” said Camalig Mayor Carlos Baldo.
Baldo said additional personnel reached the location of the last cadaver before noon yesterday and are “now attempting to descend.”
The plane, en route to Manila from the Bicol International Airport, crashed on February 18.
The wreckage was found the following day in Barangay Barangay Quirangay in Camalig town by a Philippine Air Force plane. On February 22, personnel tasked to conduct search and rescue operation reached the crash site and found the cadavers.
