Search and rescue teams prepared to scour mountainous, heavily forested terrain on Monday in Indonesia's eastern region of Papua where a passenger plane with 54 people on board crashed, officials said.
Heavy cloud initially delayed plans for an aerial survey to locate the Trigana Air Service ATR 42-300 plane, which the government confirmed on Sunday had crashed, the latest in a string of aviation disasters in Southeast Asia.
The ATR 42-300 that went missing made its first flight 27 years ago, according to online database the Aviation Safety Network. The airline has been on the European Union's list of banned carriers since 2007.
There were 44 adult passengers, five children and infants and five crew on the short-haul flight from Sentani Airport in Jayapura, capital of Papua province, south to Oksibil.
All those on the plane were Indonesian nationals, a National Search and Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) official said.
"The weather is good, no problem. All flights are ready to go," said Pratu Susilo, the operator at Sentani airport, from where an aerial survey would take off to a mountainous area near where villagers reported on Sunday that a plane had come down.
Reuters
