Reports Missing Indonesian Plane Crashed

A plane carrying 54 people went missing Saturday during a flight in bad weather in remote eastern Indonesia, officials said, in what could be the latest accident to hit the country's aviation sector.

The plane operated by Indonesian carrier Trigana Air lost contact with air traffic control just before 3:00 pm (0600 GMT) after taking off from Jayapura, the capital of Papua province, the search and rescue agency said.

The ATR 42-300 twin-turboprop plane was carrying 44 adult passengers, five children and five crew on the flight which was scheduled to take about 45 minutes, it said.

Villagers in eastern Indonesia's Papua say that a plane has crashed, an official said today.

"The plane has been found (by villagers). According to residents, the flight had crashed into a mountain. Verification is still in process," said the transport ministry's director-general of air transportation, Suprasetyo, who goes by one name.

Ten minutes before it was due to land, the plane contacted Oksibil control tower asking to descend, Captain Beni Sumaryanto, Trigana Air's service director of operations, told AFP.

The hunt was called off as night fell with no news of the missing plane, search and rescue officials said, adding the search would resume early Monday.

Source- NZ Herald