Indonesian Aircraft Crashes with 54 On Board
What you need to know
An Indonesian Trigana Air aircraft carrying 54 people has crashed in the east of the Papua province. The cause of the accident is said to be bad weather.
An Indonesian Trigana Air aircraft carrying 54 people has crashed in the east of the Papua province. The cause of the accident is said to be bad weather.
CNA reports, the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency says, the Trigana Air flight was taking off from the capital of Papua, Jayapura, and lost contact with ground control at 3 pm local time. 44 adults, five children and five staff members were on board and was scheduled to arrive at Oksibil within 45 minutes. No Taiwanese passengers were on board.
Suprasetyo, the director general of air transportation in Indonesia, says the villagers reported to have found the aircraft in the Ok Bape district of the Bintang Mountains region. The residents say the aircraft crashed into the Tangok mountain.
UDN reports, the ATR42-300 twin turboprop plane made in France and Italy took off at 2:22 pm local time from Sentani airport. The plane was scheduled to arrive Oksibi at 3:04 pm but lost contact at around 2:55 pm.
Beni Sumaryanto, operations director of Trigana Air, says the aircraft had contacted ground control and requested landing ten minutes earlier than the scheduled time, but never arrived. Half an hour later, the airline sent another plane to search for the flight, but returned to the airport because of bad weather.
Sumaryanto says, “Oksibi is in the mountains where weather conditions are very unpredictable. It could suddenly become foggy, dark or windy. We strongly suspect the aircraft lost contact due to the weather. The plane can carry up to 50 passengers, so it wasn’t overloaded.”
Liberty Times reports, there are 14 aircrafts under Trigana Air, including ten ATR aircrafts and four Boeing 747. The European Union has blacklisted Trigana Air from 2007 due to safety concerns.
Translated by June
Edited by Olivia Yang
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