Updated

Jakarta, Aug 16 (IANS): The wreckage of an Indonesian passenger airliner, carrying 54 people and reported missing earlier in the day, has been found in the remote western Papua region, authorities said on Sunday adding that the fate of those on board was not immediately known.

Indonesia's transport minister said the wreckage of the aircraft had been found in the Bintang highlands region, not far from its intended landing site at Oksibil airport, BBC reported.

The wreckage was discovered by villagers, who then alerted officials.

"Residents provided information that the aircraft crashed into Tangok mountain," said the country's director-general of air transportation Suprasetyo.

The Trigana Air Service ATR-42 flight left Sentani Airport in Papua region's capital Jayapura at 2:22 p.m. and was scheduled to land in the southern town of Oksibil at about 3:16 p.m., officials said.

The plane lost contact at about 2:55 p.m., Transportation Ministry spokesman J.A. Barata told CNN Indonesia.

The aircraft was carrying 44 adults, five children and a five-member crew.

"A search was launched earlier today, but was called off because of bad weather, and it's also now dark there," Barata added.

Military officers, policemen and other search and rescue personnel in Papua province participated in the coordinated search efforts, Transport Minister Ignasius Jonan said.

"Tomorrow (Monday), (they) will take action as earlier as possible," he told the press conference.

"Tonight (Sunday night), those officials from the search and rescue office along with director general of the air transport will go there to help handle evacuation," Jonan said.

It was unclear why the plane crashed into the mountain. Officials said the weather was clear when the plane took off in Jayapura.

Trigana Air has had 14 serious incidents since it began operations in 1991, losing 10 aircraft in the process, the Aviation Safety Network said.

It has been on a European Union (EU) blacklist of banned carriers since 2007, the network added.

Earlier Report

Indonesian aircraft with 54 people on board goes missing over Papua region

Papua, Aug 16 (Agencies) : An Indonesian airliner carrying 54 people was missing Sunday after losing contact with ground control during a short flight in bad weather in the country’s mountainous easternmost province of Papua, officials said. A search for the plane was suspended and will resume Monday morning.

The Trigana Air Service plane was flying from Papua’s provincial capital, Jayapura, to the Papua city of Oksibil when it lost contact with Oksibil’s airport, said Transportation Ministry spokesman Julius Barata. There was no indication that the pilot had made a distress call, he said.

The ATR42-300 twin turboprop plane was carrying 49 passengers and five crew members on the scheduled 42-minute journey, he said. Five children, including three infants, were among the passengers.

The weather was poor near Oksibil, with heavy rain, strong winds and fog, when the plane lost contact with the airport minutes before it was scheduled to land, said Susanto, the head of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency.
A plane was sent to look for the missing airliner, but the search was later suspended due to darkness and bad weather, said Susanto, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. The search operation will continue Monday morning, he said.
Much of Papua is covered with impenetrable jungles and mountains. Some planes that have crashed there in the past have never been found.

Indonesia has had its share of airline woes in recent years. The sprawling archipelago nation of 250 million people and some 17,000 islands is one of Asia’s most rapidly expanding airline markets, but is struggling to provide enough qualified pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers and updated airport technology to ensure safety.

From 2007 to 2009, the European Union barred Indonesian airlines from flying to Europe because of safety concerns.
Last December, all 162 people aboard an AirAsia jet were killed when the plane plummeted into the Java Sea as it ran into stormy weather on its way from Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, to Singapore.

That disaster was one of five suffered by Asian carriers in a 12-month span, including Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which went missing in March 2014 with 239 people aboard during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.