SOURCE: The Scotsman http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=10512005 Aid flights resume after plane crash FOREIGN STAFF AID flights to a major hub of the international tsunami aid operation in Indonesia resumed yesterday, after workers removed a supply plane that was damaged when it hit a herd of cattle. There were no injuries from the crash of the Boeing 737, at Banda Aceh airport in the early morning, but aid flights were blocked for more than 17 hours. The airport reopened yesterday evening, after workers dragged the cargo plane, whose undercarriage had partly collapsed, off the runway, an airport official said. It was not immediately clear exactly how many flights were delayed. Helicopters were still able to use the airport. The accident illustrates the fragility of the infrastructure in the disaster zone, where wrecked roads and bridges were blocking the flow of badly-needed relief supplies. Before the disaster, the airport was handling about three flights a day. It has since become swamped with round-the-clock traffic, with dozens of commercial flights, charter planes and helicopters hauling in medicine, water, food and other aid, as well as volunteers and those searching for loved ones. "The plane landed and then it hit a herd of cows," said Adri Gunawan, the head of air traffic control at the airport. "We?ve immediately closed the airport. For the rest of the day, aid flights will be prevented from flying here. It?s really bad." United States military helicopters taking off from the USS Abraham Lincoln continued delivering aid to Sumatra in a massive relief operation and evacuated refugees from the hardest-hit areas. Yesterday, they began using SH-60 helicopters alongside the smaller Seahawks that have been shuttling aid to Aceh. Relief supplies, according to the government, have reached 80 per cent of the coastal town of Meulaboh. Colonel Dave Kelley, the chief of the US Support Group-Indonesia, said a 15-member marine team was assessing damage to find the best places to take aid. "When we first arrived, the damage was so great that there didn?t need to be an assessment; there needed to be action," he said. The amount of aid and staff arriving in the vast region is causing bottlenecks, said Jamie McGoldrick, an official of the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.