THE wreckage of a Cessna plane missing in Isabela since January 24 was found yesterday in Divilacan town.
Six persons who were aboard are dead, officials said.
“Sadly, there were no survivors,” Constante Foronda, head of the Isabela Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, told an online press briefing yesterday afternoon.
The fatalities are pilot Capt. Eleazar Mark Joven and passengers Tom Josthle Manday, Val Kamatoy, Mark Eiron Siguerra, Xam Siguerra, and Josefa Perla España.
Foronda said the wreckage of the plane, along with six cadavers, were found by a composite team in Barangay Ditarun between 11 and 11:30 a.m.
“It took us 43 search days (to find the wreckage and the victims). This is the 44th day since the day the plane disappeared,” he said.
The plane took off from Cauayan airport in Isabela on the afternoon of January 24. It was declared missing later in the afternoon after it failed to reach its destination in Maconacon, also in Isabela.
Foronda said the families of the victims have been informed of the deaths. “They’re very said but at least they already have a closure,” said Foronda.
With the development, Foronda said efforts have shifted to retrieval from search and rescue operations.
Engineer Ezekiel Chavez, chief of the Divilacan municipal disaster risk reduction and management office, said the victims were identifiable but one of them was decapitated.
Chavez said team members first found a chair of the aircraft followed by other plane parts and clothes hanging on trees.
He said additional personnel are due to reach the crash site this morning and will later bring the cadavers down from the mountain.
“Our estimate is three days from now,” said Chavez on when they can bring the cadavers from the site.
Foronda said the challenge in bringing down the cadavers will be weather and terrain.
Foronda said personnel who found the wreckage and the victims’ cadaver are securing the plane.
“We have to secure it pending an investigation to be conducted by CAAP (Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines)… I’m told they (CAAP officials) are preparing to leave Manila and hopefully they could reach the area and determine the cause of the crash,” said Foronda.
