The C-130 Hercules transport plane crashed after takeoff from the Davao International Airport Monday evening, said Lt. Gen. Pedrito Cadungog, chief of the Philippine Air Force. There were two pilots and seven crew members on board.

    Rescuers have found parts of the plane, combat boots and some body parts nearby a village called Lapu-lapu, Davao Tuesday morning, the air force chief told Xinhua. A military identity card,of "Sargeant Petronilo Fernandez," was also found beside the debris.

    Search and rescue operations were launched after the plane went missing shortly after its takeoff at around 8:50 p.m. local time (1250 GMT) on Monday.

    The aircraft was expected to arrive in the country's central city of Iloilo around 10:00 p.m. Monday evening to pick up personnel of the Presidential Security Group and fly them back to Metro Manila, capital of the Philippines. The security guards had accompanied President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in her visit to the Iloilo City.

    The two pilots were identified as Major Manny Sambrano and Captain Adrian de Dios, according to the air force.

    "Unfortunately, their aircraft was not able to land, so we initiated search operations as early as that, around 10:00 last night," the military chief said in a TV interview.

    Cadungog said they lost contact with the plane 10 minutes after its takeoff, prompting him to initially order a "limited search."

    When the aircraft failed to arrived at its destination on schedule, he ordered a massive search involving helicopters and light aircraft of the Air Force, with the help of the Philippine Navy and Philippine Coast Guard and the Philippine National Police. A U.S. long-range patrol plane also joined the search operation, according to the military official.

    President Arroyo has ordered government agencies to provide immediate assistance to the families of the crew, said deputy presidential spokesperson Lorelei Fajardo on Tuesday.

    The President, who expressed sadness over the incident, is also expecting the Philippine Air Force to submit an initial report on the cause of the crash by Wednesday, Fajardo said.

    Authorities have not discounted the possibility of sabotage by the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) who have been the target of a military offensive.

    "We do not discount the possibility of sabotage," said the air force chief, as he said that some witnesses, who saw the ill-fated plane plunge Monday evening into the sea between the Davao City and the Samal Island, heard a loud bang when the tragedy took place.

    The crash of the all-weather and all-terrains transport plane occurred at the height of military offensives in the troubled Mindanao island against some radical MILF fighters, who attacked civilians as the government failed to sign a pact with the separatists on the expanded Muslim's ancestral domain in the southern Philippines. More than 100 people have been killed in the clashes over the past weeks.

    Military investigators, who eyed possible MILF sabotage of the ill-fated plane, said the embattled MILF fighters had a history of occasionally firing their weapons nearby the Davao airport, particularly before and during government troops' all-out war against them in 2000.

    Some investigators, however, pointed out pilot errors and mechanical defects of the old transport aircraft, as they said that MILF fighters have no weapons capable of hitting a target at some 5,000 feet (1640 meters) from the ground.