An Indonesian airliner carrying 54 people was missing Sunday after it lost contact with ground control during a short flight in the country’s easternmost province of Papua, an official said.
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Indonesia’s state search and rescue agency has reported that it lost contact with an Indonesian aircraft.
The passengers include 44 adults, two children, three toddlers and five crew members.
According to the BBC, contact with Trigana Air ATR-42 turboprop was lost just before 3 p.m. local time (2 a.m. EDT).
The government said it is coordinating with other authorities to implement a search operation. It is a Trigana airline plane carrying 54 people including five crew. “We are working to get more details”.
It was not immediately clear if search efforts would continue into the night in the densely forested mountainous region where the aircraft was traveling.
The Trigana Air Service is one of many Indonesian airlines banned from operating in the European Union for safety reasons. ATR is a joint venture between Airbus and Alenia Aermacchi, a subsidiary of Italian aerospace firm Finmeccanica.
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In January an AirAsia flight from from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore crashed, killing all 162 people on board the Airbus A320.
