At least 17 people were killed after a plane carrying troops crashed on landing in the Philippines and exploded into flames.
The Lockheed C-130 transport aircraft crashed at Patikul in Sulu province in the far south of the archipelago nation on Sunday.
Seventeen bodies have been recovered and 40 injured had been rescued so far, Defence Minister Delfin Lorenzana said in a statement.
“Rescue and recovery is ongoing,” he added.
Most of the 92 people aboard were troops flying from Laguindingan Airport, some 290 miles to the northeast.
The tragedy involving the Philippines Air Force plane is the country’s worst military air disaster in nearly 30 years.
Pictures from the scene showed flames and smoke pouring from wreckage strewn among trees as men in combat uniform milled around.
A large column of black smoke rose from the coconut palms into the blue sky.
A military spokesman, Colonel Edgard Arevalo, said there was no indication of any attack on the plane, but that a crash investigation had not begun and efforts were focussed on rescue and treatment.
Military chief Cirilito Sobejana said the plane had “missed the runway trying to regain power.”
Sobejana said the plane had crashed a few miles from Jolo airport at 11.30am local time and had been carrying troops.
“We are currently attending to the survivors who were immediately brought to the 11th Infantry Division station hospital in Busbus, Jolo, Sulu,” he said.
The island is about 600 miles south of the country’s capital, Manila.
The Lockheed C-130H Hercules aircraft had only arrived in the Philippines recently. It was one of two aircraft granted by the US government through the Defence Security Cooperation Agency, according to a government website announcement in January.
The website C-130.net said the plane that crashed had first flown in 1988. The model is a workhorse for armed forces around the world.
The Philippines armed forces have had a patchy air safety record. Last month a Black Hawk helicopter crashed during a training mission, killing six people.
A Philippines Air Force C-130 crash in 1993 killed 30 people. A 2008 crash by the civilian variant of the Lockheed plane flown by the Philippines Air Force killed 11 people, according to the Aviation Safety Network.
In the country’s worst plane crash, an Air Philippines Boeing 737 crashed in 2000, killing 131 people.
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