'Dead man' walks from jungle after plane crash

A bruised and shocked man has emerged from the jungle of Indonesian Borneo, a week after authorities announced he had died in a plane crash.

Bangau Juni stumbled half naked, exhausted and starving into the remote village of Papadi. He said he had been on board the flight that crashed into a mountain in the island's East Kalimantan province, near the border with the Malaysian state of Sabah, on 16 July. The authorities had announced that all 10 people on the aircraft, which was on a routine one-hour flight from Tarakan to Krayan, died in the crash. But yesterday a local police chief confirmed Mr Bangau had been found by villagers on Monday.

There may have been confusion over the number of people who died because some of the bodies were so badly dismembered they could not be identified, he said. "The villagers confirm he was a survivor of the plane crash," said Herman Ismail, police chief of Tarakan.

Mr Bangau told the villagers he had walked for five days following a small river through the dense jungle before coming upon Papadi. Villagers discovered him injured and starving three miles from the crash site. He was taken to hospital in the nearby town of Long Bawang, where his family lives. "He is still confused and can't give us much information yet about the crash," Mr Ismail said.

The wreckage of the plane, a Britten-Norman BN-2B, was located soon after the crash soon found, but the cause of the accident remains unknown.