DIVILACAN, Isabela – Responders reached the crash site of the Cessna 206 plane in a mountainous area in Barangay Ditarum, this town, on Saturday morning, March 11.
The Army 5th Infantry Division said the retrieval team arrived in the area at 8 a.m.
They were supposed to get there earlier but rain and slippery slopes delayed them.
Engr. Chavez Eizekiel of the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said there are five teams composed of 58 responders involved in the retrieval operation – Rescue 314 Divilacan, nine; Divilacan police, five; Bureau of Fire Protection, six; Special Action Force, 28, and military, 10.
The Office of Civil Defense (OCD)-Region 2 has requested an aircraft from the Armed Forces Northern Luzon Command to ferry the remains of the six people onboard the aircraft from this town to the Cauayan City Airport.
The plane went missing last Jan. 24 after departing the Cauayan City Airport for
Maconacon, Isabela at 2:15 p.m.
Its last radio contact with air traffic controllers was four minutes later over Naguilian, Isabela.
No survivors were found among the fatalities identified as pilot Capt. Eleazar Mark Joven and passengers Tommy Manday, Val Kamatoy, Mark Eiron Seguerra, Xam Seguerra, and Josefa Perla España.
Wreckage was strewn in the crash site and clothes of the victims, one of them without a head, were hanging on trees.