The mystery of what happened to a plane that vanished Sunday in a remote region of Indonesia with 54 people on board seems to have been solved as officials said wreckage was spotted close to its destination.
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“There were four people carrying the money, 6.5 billion rupiah ($471,500)”, a spokesman for Indonesia’s postal service said. It was being escorted by four post office workers, reported Xinhua. Budiono also said that among the passengers were three local government officials and two members of the local parliament who were to attend a ceremony Monday in Oksibil marking the 70th anniversary of Indonesia’s independence from Dutch colonial rule. Some planes that have crashed there in the past have never been found.
After the plane failed to land, Trigana Air sent another flight over the area to hunt for it but the aircraft failed to spot anything due to bad weather.
Guru displayed grainy photographs of what is believed to be the site of Sunday’s crash of the Trigana Air Service ATR 42-300 plane, in the heavily forested Bintang Mountains district.
Indonesian officials have confirmed that a plane with 54 people on board that went missing in the Papuan highlands Sunday afternoon crashed into a mountain, Jakarta Globe reports.
While clear skies were noted when the passenger plane left Jayapura, Oksibil was experiencing bad weather, characterized by heavy rain, fog and strong winds when the plane reached that area.
Widodo said in a statement that he was calling “for a moment of silence and pray for the crew and passengers ahead of our independence anniversary”.
He described the mountain, Mount Tangok, as “not very tall”, adding that when the plane crashed, it was probably 10 minutes away from the Oksibil airport.
It is just the latest air accident in Indonesia, which has a patchy aviation safety record and has suffered major incidents recently, including the crash of an AirAsia plane in December with the loss of 162 lives. ATR, based in Toulouse, France, makes regional planes with 90 seats or less.
Indonesia’s president promised a review of the ageing air force fleet in July after a military transport plane crashed in the north of the country, killing more than 100 people.
Indonesia has had a string of airline tragedies in recent years.
Officials at Trigana Air, placed on the EU’s list of banned carriers since 2007 over safety or regulatory concerns, were not immediately available to respond to questions from reporters. “Verification is still in process”, said the transport ministry’s director-general of air transportation, Suprasetyo, who goes by one name.
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Trigana has had 14 serious incidents since it began operations in 1991, online database Aviation Safety Network says.
