The remains of the four victims in the Cessna plane crash in Albay have been finally retrieved by the emergency responders on Saturday afternoon, seven days after it went missing.
According to Camalig Mayor Carlos Irwin Baldo, the remains will initially be brought to the base camp, in Barangay Anoling near the base of the volcano. It will later on be transferred to the Camalig, Albay proper on Saturday night.
In his Facebook post, Mayor Baldo said, “Following reports from the retrieval team, stating the successful recovery of the 4 bodies onboard Cessna 340A, the Incident Management Team (IMT) now starts to plan the proper handling of bodies, their drop off point, ground security protocols, and turn over to concerned authorities and eventually to the bereaved families.”
The plane had 4 souls on board: its pilot, Capt. Rufino James Crisostomo Jr., his mechanic, Joel Martin, and their two Australian passengers, Simon Chipperfield and Karthi Santhanam.
Baldo earlier said that the rescue team faced challenges in retrieving the bodies in Mayon, but they still pushed through despite the extreme dangers at the volcano.
