Trigana Air ATR42-300 crashes in Papua killing all 54 on board

On a flight between Jayapura and Oksibil in Papua, a journey which usually takes 42 minutes, Indonesia’s Trigana Aior ATR-300 crashed into Mount Tangok at just before 3pm local time, 0600hrs GMT, on Sunday. It is understood there were no survivors from the 49 passengers and 5 crew on board. Within the passenger manifest were five children together with 6.5billion rupiah (US$470,000) which was intended for distribution to the poor in the Eastern region. Haryono, the head of the Jayapura post office confirmed that “Four of our personnel were escorting the funds.”
According to Trigana Air’s service director of operations, Captain Beni Sumaryanto, Oksibil is “a mountainous area where the weather is very unpredictable. It can suddenly turn foggy, dark and windy without warning. We strongly suspect it’s a weather issue. It is not overcapacity, as the plane could take 50 passengers.”
The plane disappeared from radar approximately ten minutes out from Oksibil and shortly after the pilot had requested permission to start the descent. When the plane failed to arrive at the airport on time a second plane was dispatched to search the area looking for signs of any wreckage, but it failed to spot anything owing to the poor weather conditions. Local villagers reported seeing a plane crash into the mountains, and wreckage was found on Monday morning. The head of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) Papuan branch, Ludi, said the wreckage was found at camp three in the Ogbape district of the Bingang mountain district.
Indonesia has a poor flight safety record and since being established in 1991, Trigana air has had fourteen serious incidents logged, while the airline is blacklisted from European Union airspace. An AirAsia plane flying from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore crashed in the Java Sea during stormy weather in December last year, killing all 162 passengers and crew. This June an Indonesian military plane crashed into a residential area of the city of Medan, killing 142 people.