Passenger of Indonesia’s crashed chopper found alive

Heronimus Guru, the deputy operation director at the National Search and Rescue Agency, said Fransiskus Subihardayan, 22, was found floating naked on Tuesday afternoon about 2 miles from Samosir Island.

“He said the five managed to jump off, and they managed to stay afloat by holding on to water hyacinths until 11:00 pm but then they were separated”, he said.

“A marine, who is with the army search team, found him floating and hanging on to a few water hyacinth to survive for the past two days”, a member of special force searching for the chopper, Colonel Fachri, told reporters on Tuesday.

Supriyadi on Wednesday described the survivor’s condition as weak but somewhat better than when he was first discovered.

A Eurocopter EC 130 PK-BKA type chartered helicopter owned by PT Penerbangan Angkasa Semesta piloted by Captain Teguh Mulyatno and technician Hari Poerwantono along with three passengers Nurhayanto, Giyanto and Frans lost contact at noon Sunday from Samosir Island to Kualanamu, Serdang Deli, North Sumatra.

“It lost contact with the air traffic control at Kualanamu about 10 minutes before it was expected to arrive”.

The rescue came after a helicopter seat cushion was found in the lake late Monday.

Ten people were killed when a domestic passenger plane crashed in the jungles on Sulawesi island early this month.