Indonesian searchers believe they have located debris from an airliner that crashed in a mountainous area with 54 people on board. A search plane spotted the wreckage on Monday, but a ground team hasn’t yet been able to reach it, said Raymond Konstantin, an official for Indonesia’s search and rescue agency.
Authorities had said earlier that villagers in a remote area of Indonesia’s eastern Papua province reported seeing the passenger plane crash into a mountain. It’s the Southeast Asian nation’s third air disaster in less than eight months.
The ATR42-300 turboprop aircraft operated by Trigana Air Service was carrying 44 adult passengers, five children and five crew members when it went missing during a short domestic flight Sunday. All of those on board were Indonesian.
The flight lost contact with air traffic control at about 2:55 p.m., in Papua on Sunday afternoon. It had left Sentani Airport in Jayapura at 2:22 p.m. and was scheduled to land in Oksibil at about 3:16 p.m. It was reported, there was no indication that; a distress call was made from the plane.
Trigana Air Service is one of a large number of airlines banned from operating in European airspace “because they are found to be unsafe and/or they are not sufficiently overseen by their authorities,” according to the European Commission. It has been on the list since 2007.
Courtesy: CNN.com, Reuters.com & foxnews.com