Indonesian airliner carrying 54 loses contact over Papua

Last December, an AirAsia jet carrying 162 people plummeted into the sea as it ran into stormy weather on its way from Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, to Singapore.

The TGN267 flight took off at 14:22 from the Sentani airport in Papua’s capital of Jayapura and was expected to arrive at Oksibil at 15:04, he said. Five children, including three infants, were among the passengers.

Barata said there was no indication that a distress call was made from the plane.

The agency’s Jayapura office was coordinating the search, a separate Tweet read as dusk set in across the tropics. Because we simply can’t handle another lost plane.

“Residents provided information that the aircraft crashed into Tangok mountain”, said the Indonesia’s director-general of air transportation, Suprasetyo.

Local villagers told authorities that they saw a plane crash into a mountain.

“The weather is now very bad there, it’s very dark and cloudy”.

All contact with an Indonesian Airliner has been lost over Papua.

Air transport is commonly used in Papua, Indonesia’s easternmost province, where land travel often is impossible.

Flight 267 was operated using an ATR 42-300 and the aircraft had its first flight 27 years back, according to Aviation Safety Net, a website that collects information about aviation accidents.

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

This prompted the Indonesian government to impose regulations to improve safety.

Indonesia’s president pledged to review the country’s aging air force in July, following a military plane crash that left over 100 people dead.