Plane carrying 54 people missing

An Indonesian plane with 54 people on board has gone missing in a remote region of Papua region, aviation officials have said.

The plane, Trigana Air ATR 42, lost contact with air traffic control just before 15:00 local time (06:00 GMT) after taking off at the Sentani airport in the regional capital Jayapura, the BBC is reporting.

The plane was en route to Oksibil in the south of the country and had 44 adult passengers, five children and infants, and five crew.

“We are not sure what happened to the plane yet and we are co-ordinating with local authorities,” a spokesman for the Indonesian Transport Ministry, said.

“The weather is currently very bad there, it’s very dark and cloudy. It’s not conducive for a search. The area is mountainous.”

Indonesia has a dreadful record of aviation record. Last December, an Indonesia AirAsia plane crashed in the Java Sea while on an international flight from Surabaya to Singapore, killing all 192 people on board.

A military transport plane crashed in a residential area of Medan, Sumatra in July, killing more than 140 people, including several on the ground.