A plane carrying 15 people slammed into a hillside in remote northeastern Australia on Saturday, killing everyone on board in the country's worst civil aviation disaster since 1968.
A recovery operation was underway Sunday on a rugged hillside in Queensland state where the twin-propellor plane went down in rainy conditions Saturday and burst into flames.
"We've just had a police officer winched in who has confirmed there are no signs of life," state police spokeswoman Kirsten Roos told <i>The AP</i>.
Just before the crash, the scheduled Aero-Tropics flight had radioed that the plane was about to land, said police Superintendent Michael Keating.
"The weather may be a factor; we just don't know at this stage what the cause of this incident is," Keating told <i>Seven Network television</i>.
The Fairchild Metroliner plane, with two pilots and 13 passengers, was heading to Lockhart River, an Aboriginal community of 350 people in Queensland. The plane was en route from Bamaga, near the tip of the Cape York Peninsula, about 170 miles from Lockhart River.
