The bodies of all five passengers on board the Eurocopter AS350 have been found and sent for burial in their home towns. The pilot, Capt Rudolf Rex Ragas, a Filipino, is still missing.
To help in the search, two Dron mers999 operators from Telekom Malaysia have been flown in from Kuala Lumpur.
One of them, Shaiful Zamri Masri, 42, said two drone models, Phantom 4 and Inspire 1 were to be used.
“The drones can fly for 20 minutes over an area of five kilometres at a height of 122 metres,” he said. “The drones will take photographs and record videos. If we find anything on the target, we will alert the SAR operations centre. All data will be shared with the team,” he said at the SAR operations centre in Lingga.
Shaiful Zamri, who has had some experience in SAR operations during the earthquake in Sabah last year, will manage the UAVs with colleague Muhamad Afiq Sadali.
Villagers at Kampung Siantan, Lingga, have also been asked to help. The village chief Wan Amit Wan Kamil, 57, a security guard at SK Lela Pahlawan, said he found a backpack which he thought might have something to do with the incident.
He was searching in his boat in the Selimbang River near Peleban about 7km from the operations centre when I saw a backpack hanging on a ‘pedada’ tree,” he told Bernama. Wan Amit said he took the bag and took it to the SAR operations centre.
The five passengers killed in the crash were Noriah Kasnon, deputy minister for plantation industries and commodities; her husband Asmuni Abdullah; her bodyguard Ahmad Sobri Harun; the plantations ministry’s secretary-general, Dr Sundaran Annamalai, and the MP for Kuala Kangsar, Wan Mohammad Khair-il Anuar Wan Ahmad, who was also chairman of the Malaysian Palm Oil Board.
– BERNAMA