A rescue team on an Air Force helicopter spotted a small window of the plane in a forested area on the slopes of Mount Bulusarang.
Published on January 18, 2026
Indonesian rescuers are believed to have recovered the wreckage of the missing plane crash 11 people on a ship heading towards the highlands of the island of Sulawesi in cloudy weather.
The discovery came on Sunday after the small plane disappeared from radar on Saturday en route from Yogyakarta on Indonesia’s main island of Java to Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province.
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On Sunday morning, a rescue team on an air force helicopter spotted the small plane in the window in the forest on the slopes of Mount Bulusarang, said Muhammad Arif Anwar, head of Makassar’s search and rescue office.
Rescuers on the ground then pulled out a large piece of debris consistent with the main waterfall that had spilled over the northern slope, Anwar told a news conference.
“The discovery of the main parts of the aircraft significantly narrows the search area and provides an important clue to tighten the search area,” Anwar said. “Our joint search and rescue teams are now focusing on locating the victims, especially those who may still be alive.”
The plane, a turboprop ATR 42-500, was operated by Indonesia Air Transport and was last tracked in the Leang-Leng area of Maros, a mountainous district in South Sulawesi province.
It had eight crew members and three passengers from the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries who were on board as part of an aerial maritime surveillance mission.
Major-General Bangun Nawoko, the Hasanuddin military commander in South Sulawesi, said ground and air rescue teams continued to advance toward the wreckage site on Sunday despite strong winds, thick fog and rocky, rugged terrain.
Photos and videos released by the National Search and Rescue Agency on Sunday showed rescuers trekking up a steep, narrow mountain ridge shrouded in thick fog to reach the scattered wreckage.
Indonesia relies heavily on air transport and ferries to connect its more than 17,000 islands. The Southeast Asian country has been plagued by traffic accidents in recent years, from plane and bus crashes to ferry sinkings.
