Death Toll at 41 in Crash of Indonesia Plane

Rescuers recovered more bodies Friday from the wreckage of an Indonesian shuttle flight that plunged into the coast of Irian Jaya province, killing all but two of the 43 people on board.

A spokeswoman for Merpati Nusantara airlines, which operated the 85-seat Fokker 28, said two Japanese were among the dead.

Investigators were combing the sea and shore for clues to Thursday’s crash, Indonesia’s worst this year.

The airline said the plane, on a flight from Jakarta, was trying to land at the Japanese-built Sorong airstrip on Jefman Island in bad weather.

Sorong is a fading oil town in Irian Jaya, which takes up the western half of the huge tropical island of New Guinea.