Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Handover of Superjet crash victims' bodies starts in Indonesia - @ria_novosti

The ceremony to hand over the remains of victims of a recent Superjet 100 air crash in Indonesia to relatives and embassy officials started in Jakarta on Wednesday morning, RIA Novosti correspondents reported.

The Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SSJ-100) passenger jet slammed into the side of Indonesia’s Mount Salak near Jakarta shortly after takeoff on a demonstration flight on May 9. All 45 people on board were killed.

The cockpit voice recorder has been found, and its data is being decoded. The parametric flight data recorder has not been yet recovered from the crash site.

The Sukhoi Superjet is the first commercial plane designed and built in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union two decades ago. It is considered by many in the industry to be Russia's last hope for maintaining a commercial aircraft manufacturing capability.

Coffins with bodies of Russians killed in the crash will be delivered to Moscow on Thursday.