An Indonesian passenger plain carrying some 54 people and $470,000 cash has been the latest addition to the list of aerial disasters in said Southeast Asian nation.
The ATR42-300 turboprop aircraft under the Trigana Air Service was carrying 44 adult, five children and five crew members when it went missing last Sunday on a nearby domestic flight while in the Papua region, CNN reported.
Indonesian Transportation Ministry spokesman Julius Barata stated that the aircraft left the Sentani Airport at 2:22 p.m. that afternoon, it was expected to land at Oksibil in a little less than an hour. However, authorities have lost contact with the plane at 2:55 p.m.
Meanwhile, Trigana Air director of operations Beni Sumaryanto said that overcapacity would not be the likely cause for the mishap and further stated that their company suspects that the weather in the Oksibil region could be the probable reason since it is mountainous where air and weather conditions are unpredictable. Villagers from Okbape, some 25 km. from the Oksibil airport informed the authorities that they saw an airplane flying lowly and crashing into a mountain Sunday afternoon, according to BBC.
An official from the BASARNAS, the National Search and Rescue Agency in Indonesia, said that a similar incident occurred last year when a Super Puma helicopter crashed in the Oksibil region, the accident being credited to the weather in the area where it would have clear mornings and sudden rainy afternoons, NBC News reported.
PT Pos Spokesman Abu Sofjan revealed in an interview that four of the passengers in the lost aircraft carried with them 6.5 billion rupiah ($471,000) intended to be distributed among local villagers as part of the state-owned firm's official assistance program for the poor.
Spokesman Barata said that he will be flying from Jakarta to Papua to investigate on the accident along with the search and rescue teams.
