Airliner with 54 aboard goes missing in eastern Indonesia
Indonesian airliner carrying 54 people goes missing in easternmost Papua province
Associated Press By Niniek Karmini, Associated Press | 11 hours ago
In this photo taken Dec. 26, 2010, Trigana Air Service's ATR42-300 twin turboprop plane takes off at Supadio airport in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The same type of a Trigana airliner carrying 54 people was missing Sunday, Aug. 16, 2015 after losing contact with ground control during a short flight in bad weather in the country's mountainous easternmost province of Papua, officials said. A search for the plane was suspended and will resume Monday morning. (AP Photo)
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- An airliner carrying 54 people went missing Sunday during a short flight in bad weather in Indonesia's mountainous easternmost province of Papua, and rescuers were heading to an area where villagers reported seeing a plane crash into a mountain, officials said.
The Trigana Air Service plane was flying from Papua's provincial capital, Jayapura, to the Papua city of Oksibil when it lost contact with Oksibil's airport, said Transportation Ministry spokesman Julius Barata. There was no indication that the pilot had made a distress call, he said.
The ATR42-300 twin turboprop plane was carrying 49 passengers and five crew members on the scheduled 42-minute journey, Barata said. Five children, including two infants, were among the passengers.
Local media reports said all the passengers are Indonesians. The airline did not immediately release a passenger manifest.
Oksibil, which is about 280 kilometers (175 miles) south of Jayapura, was experiencing heavy rain, strong winds and fog when the plane lost contact with the airport minutes before it was scheduled to land, said Susanto, the head of Papua's search and rescue agency.
Residents of Okbape village in Papua's Bintang district told local police that they saw a plane flying low before crashing into a mountain, said Susanto, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. He said about 150 rescuers were heading to the remote area, which is known for its dense forest and steep cliffs, and would begin searching for the plane early Monday.
Okbape is about 24 kilometers (15 miles) west of Oksibil.
A plane was sent Sunday to look for the missing airliner, but the air search was suspended due to darkness and limited visibility and will resume Monday morning, Susanto said.
Much of Papua is covered with impenetrable jungles and mountains. Some planes that have crashed there in the past have never been found.
Dudi Sudibyo, an aviation analyst, said that Papua is a particularly dangerous place to fly because of its mountainous terrain and rapidly changing weather patterns. "I can say that a pilot who is capable of flying there will be able to fly an aircraft in any part of the world," he said.
Indonesia has had its share of airline woes in recent years. The sprawling archipelago nation of 250 million people and some 17,000 islands is one of Asia's most rapidly expanding airline markets, but is struggling to provide enough qualified pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers and updated airport technology to ensure safety.
From 2007 to 2009, the European Union barred Indonesian airlines from flying to Europe because of safety concerns.
Last December, all 162 people aboard an AirAsia jet were killed when the plane plummeted into the Java Sea as it ran into stormy weather on its way from Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city, to Singapore.
That disaster was one of five suffered by Asian carriers in a 12-month span, including Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which went missing in March 2014 with 239 people aboard during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Trigana Air Service, which commenced operations in 1991, had 22 aircraft as of December 2013 and flies to 21 destinations in Indonesia.
___
Associated Press writer Ali Kotarumalos contributed to this report.
___
This story has been corrected to show that Susanto is the head of Papua's search and rescue agency, not the national search and rescue agency.
@y7finance on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook
***
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
17082015
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là ĐỒNG LÕA với TỘI ÁC
No comments:
Post a Comment