Debris spotted of Indonesian plane that carried 54 people

World Today

Relatives of passengers on the missing Trigana Air Service flight sit at Sentani airport in Jayapura, Papua province, Indonesia, Monday, Aug. 17, 2015. Rescue officials spotted an Indonesian airliner that went missing on Sunday in the country’s mountainous easternmost province of Papua and rescue teams were preparing to try to reach the crash site by air and foot. (AP Photo)

An airplane with 54 people on board that crashed in the mountains of eastern Indonesia was carrying nearly half a million dollars in government cash for poor families to help offset a spike in fuel prices, an official said Monday.

Smoldering wreckage of the Trigana Air Service turboprop plane was spotted from the air Monday morning in a rugged area of the easternmost province of Papua, rescue officials said. There was no immediate word of any survivors from Sunday’s crash, which happened in bad weather.

Four postal workers aboard the plane were escorting four bags of cash totaling $468,750 in government fuel aid, Franciscus Haryono, the head of the post office in Jayapura, the provincial capital, told The Associated Press.

The ATR42-300 twin turboprop plane was flying from Jayapura to the city of Oksibil when it lost contact. Transportation Ministry spokesman Julius Barata said there was no indication that the pilot had made a distress call.

The cash from the Social Affairs Ministry was to be distributed among poor people in remote areas to cushion the jump in fuel costs, Haryono said.

“They were carrying those bags (of cash) to be handed out to poor people in Oksibil through a post office there,” Haryono said.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration raised fuel prices late last year and slashed government subsidies, a move the government says will save the country billions of dollars but has already sparked angry protests around the country.

Officials said three search planes spotted the wreckage about 12 kilometers (7 miles) from Oksibil. Search and rescue operations involving about 10 aircraft were halted Monday evening because of darkness and would resume early Tuesday, said Heronimus Guru, deputy operations director of the National Search and Rescue Agency.

The plane was carrying 49 passengers and five crew members on a scheduled 42-minute flight. Five children, including two infants, were among the passengers.

“Smoke was still billowing from the wreckage when it was spotted by a plane search,” said Henry Bambang Soelistyo, the chief of the National Search and Rescue Agency. He said bad weather and rugged terrain were hampering efforts to reach the wreckage, located at an altitude of 2,600 meters (about 8,500 feet).

He said elite forces from the air force and army will build a helipad for evacuation purposes near the crash site. Much of Papua is covered with impenetrable jungles and mountains. Some planes that have crashed in the past have never been found.

Search planes went into the air early Monday after residents of a village not far from Oksibil told police that they saw a plane flying low before crashing into a mountain, said Ludiyanto, who heads the search and rescue operation from Jayapura, and like many Indonesians uses only one name.

This photo released by the National Search and Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) of Indonesia Monday, Aug. 17,2015 shows the part of the wreckage that BASARNAS identified as of the missing Trigana Air Service flight that crashed in Oksibil, Papua, Indonesia. Smoldering wreckage of the passenger turboprop plane with 54 people on board was spotted from the air Monday morning in a rugged area of the easternmost province of Papua, rescue officials said. (AP Photo/The National Search and Rescue Agency of Indonesia) MANDATORY CREDIT

This photo released by the National Search and Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) of Indonesia Monday, Aug. 17,2015 shows the part of the wreckage that BASARNAS identified as of the missing Trigana Air Service flight that crashed in Oksibil, Papua, Indonesia. Smoldering wreckage of the passenger turboprop plane with 54 people on board was spotted from the air Monday morning in a rugged area of the easternmost province of Papua, rescue officials said. (AP Photo/The National Search and Rescue Agency of Indonesia) MANDATORY CREDIT

The airline’s crisis center official in Jayapura’s Sentani airport, Budiono, said all the passengers were Indonesians.

Budiono said the passengers included 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.

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.”

Oksibil, 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.

European plane maker ATR said late Sunday that it “acknowledges the reported loss of contact” with the Trigana flight “and is standing by to support the relevant aviation authorities.” ATR, based in Toulouse, France, makes regional planes with 90 seats or less.

Indonesia has had a string of airline tragedies in recent years. In December, all 162 people aboard an AirAsia jet were killed when the plane plummeted into the Java Sea as it flew through stormy weather on its way from Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, to Singapore.

The sprawling archipelago nation of 250 million people and some 17,000 islands is one of Asia’s most rapidly expanding airline markets, but it 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.

Trigana Air Service, which began operations in 1991, had 22 aircraft as of December 2013 and flies to 21 destinations in Indonesia.

Story by AP

Treacherous terrain hampers rescue efforts for crashed Indonesian plane

Treacherous terrain in Indonesia’s Papua province on Monday hampered rescuers’ efforts to reach a passenger plane that crashed with 54 aboard, the latest in a string of aviation disasters in the sprawling Southeast Asian archipelago.

Rescuers have yet to detect the aircraft’s black boxes and news of survivors depends on a ground team now trekking slowly towards the mountainous area, the rescue official overseeing the search said.

“If it collided into a mountain, there has never been a case of survivors. But who knows, let’s wait,” said Major-General Heronimus Guru, operations director at Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency.

Rescue teams arriving at the site will have to build a helipad to fly in help, Guru told a news conference in the Indonesian capital, adding that 266 people were involved in the operation, while 11 aircraft scoured the thickly forested area.

As dusk falls in Papua, search operations will resume at 6.30 a.m. on Tuesday, depending on the 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.

Officials of Trigana, placed on the European Union’s list of banned carriers since 2007 over safety or regulatory concerns, were not immediately available to respond to questions from Reuters.

There were 44 adult passengers, five children and infants and five crew on the short-haul flight from Sentani Airport in Jayapura, capital of the province of Papua, south to Oksibil.

All aboard were Indonesian nationals, officials have said.

National Search And Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) chief F. Henry Bambang Soelistyo, left, looks at a map with Air Vice Marshal Sudipo Handoyo during a search operation for the missing Trigana Air Service flight at Sentani airport in Jayapura, Papua province, Indonesia, Monday, Aug. 17, 2015. Rescuers are making their way into the rugged mountains of Indonesia's easternmost province of Papua, where the airliner carrying 54 people went missing in bad weather Sunday. (AP Photo/Alfian)

National Search And Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) chief F. Henry Bambang Soelistyo, left, looks at a map with Air Vice Marshal Sudipo Handoyo during a search operation for the missing Trigana Air Service flight at Sentani airport in Jayapura, Papua province, Indonesia, Monday, Aug. 17, 2015. Rescuers are making their way into the rugged mountains of Indonesia’s easternmost province of Papua, where the airliner carrying 54 people went missing in bad weather Sunday. (AP Photo/Alfian)

Earlier reports have said the aircraft was carrying cash of about $470,000 destined for remote villages, as part of an official assistance program.

Poor infrastructure in Indonesia’s easternmost province means that assistance money is often flown in by air, said post office spokesman Abu Sofjan.

There was no suggestion the large sum of money carried on the plane was linked to the crash.

Guru told reporters the cash was not a priority and confirmation of the cause of the crash would have to await an official investigation by a national transport safety panel.

“I feel that it collided into a mountain, but let’s wait for the KNKT,” he said, referring to the panel by its official name, the National Transportation Safety Commmittee.

Erratic weather could have played a role in the crash, said another official.

“It’s the weather there, it changes all the time. In the morning it can be clear and hot, and then suddenly it rains,” said Sito, a communications operator with the rescue agency in Jayapura.

A Super Puma helicopter crashed in the same area last year, said Sito, who goes by one name, like many Indonesians.

The crashed ATR 42-300 made its first flight 27 years ago, the Aviation Safety Network says. Trigana Air Service has a fleet of 14 aircraft, aged 26.6 years on average, the airfleets.com database says.

Trigana has had 14 serious incidents since it began operations in 1991, online database Aviation Safety Network says. Besides the latest crash, it has written off 10 aircraft.

Indonesia has a patchy aviation safety record, with two major plane crashes in the past year.

One involved an AirAsia flight that went down in the Java Sea, killing all 162 aboard. In June, more than 100 people died in the crash of a military transport plane, prompting Indonesia’s president to promise a review of the aging air force fleet.

Story by Reuters