An ATR 42-300 twin turboprop plane of Trigana Air, with five crew members and 49 passengers aboard, has disappeared last Sunday. The plane lost contact minutes before it was supposed to land. Among the passengers of the plane were five children.
The plane took off from Jayapura, a provincial capital of Indonesia. It was scheduled to land in Oksibil Airport; both places are located in Papua.
While clear skies were noted when the passenger plane left Jayapura, Oksibil was experiencing bad weather, characterized by heavy rain, fog and strong winds when the plane reached that area.
The aircraft was spotted by villagers seven miles from its destination, into Tangok mountain found in the remote eastern province of Okbape, but the information still has to be verified.
Search and rescue operations by air and foot were immediately organized, but had to be suspended on that same day due to limited visibility brought by the weather. The operations are set to resume today, Monday, with the aerial and ground searches, as well as for the villagers' reports to be finally confirmed. An officer of the nation's Search and Rescue Agency, Raymond Konstantin, disclosed that six other aircrafts are being dispatched to help with the search.
As of this time, the whereabouts of all 54 passengers remain unknown.
The incident was the third for Indonesia in less than a year, the country being known for its poor air transportation system. In June, a military plane crashed into a residential community killing more than 100 people, while a commercial plane of AirAsia dived into the Java Sea, killing 162 in December 2014.
Trigana Air Service is one of the airlines banned since 2007 from operating in Europe "because they are found to be unsafe and/or they are not sufficiently overseen by their authorities," reports the European Commission.
The President of the country is now vowing to take measures in improving its ageing aviation system.
