TAKING THEM HOME | The retrieval teams, composed of personnel from government and disaster response agencies, carefully place in body bags the remains of the pilot and passengers of the Cessna 206 plane that crashed in the Sierra Madre forest in Divilacan, Isabela, on Jan. 24, 2023. They arrived at the town center on Sunday after a three-day retrieval operation. (Photo courtesy of the Philippine Coast Guard)
CAUAYAN CITY, Isabela, Philippines — Despite heavy rain and the difficult terrain in the Sierra Madre mountain ranges faced by the retrieval teams, the remains of the pilot and the five passengers of the ill-fated Cessna 206 plane finally arrived at the town center of Divilacan town in Isabela province on Sunday, the Incident Management Team (IMT) said.
The bodies of pilot Capt. Eleazar Mark Joven, and his passengers—Val Kamatoy, 34; Kamatoy’s nephews Rom Josthle Manaday, 15, and siblings Mark Eiron Siguerra, 20, and Xam Siguerra, 10; and Josefa Perla España—arrived at Barangay Dimapula at around 12:54 p.m., nearly three days since the retrieval teams started their trek to the crash site on Thursday.
Lawyer Constante Foronda, IMT commander and Isabela provincial disaster risk reduction and management officer, said in a phone interview on Sunday that the 58-member retrieval teams would turn over the bodies to a second team from the Philippine Air Force (PAF) waiting at the Divilacan town proper.
The PAF team would airlift the bodies aboard a helicopter to Cauayan Airport on Monday, where their respective families would be waiting to receive them, Foronda said.
Final journey
The remains will be taken to a funeral parlor in the city to be placed in coffins for their final journey to their respective homes, Foronda added.
The Cessna 206 plane had just taken off from Cauayan Airport bound for the Isabela town of Maconacon when it went missing on Jan. 24. The wreckage of the aircraft and the bodies of the passengers were found in the Sierra Madre forest of Barangay Ditarum in Divilacan town on March 9 after over a month of searching.
On Friday, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines started a probe into what caused the plane crash.