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Alfian / AP Photo
An Indonesian official says that rescuers have managed to reach the crash site of an Indonesian plane that went missing two days ago with 54 people on board and that there were no survivors.
“The plane was totally destroyed and all the bodies were burned and difficult to identify,” National Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said. “There is no chance anyone survived.”
He said all 54 bodies had been recovered and will be taken to Jayapura, the capital of Papua province, so they can be identified.
The Trigana Air Service plane was flying from Jayapura to the city of Oksibil with 49 passengers and five crew members on a scheduled 42-minute flight when it lost contact Sunday.
Rescue workers on Tuesday also found the aircraft's data recorders, which should provide investigators with some answers, Transportation Ministry spokesman Julius Adravida Barata said via text.
Soelistyo said the wreckage was in the mountains around 8,500 feet. Much of Papua's mountainous terrain is covered with impenetrable jungles and planes that have crashed in the past have never been found.
It was unclear what caused the caused the crash, Indonesia's transportation safety commission has opened an investigation.
The plane lost contact with air traffic control as it flew over eastern Indonesia on Sunday. Difficult terrain hampered the search.
The disappearance of the Trigana Air plane is the latest in a string of aviation disasters in the southeast Asian nation.
According to the Indonesian search and rescue agency, BASARNAS, the aircraft, a short-haul ATR 42-300 airliner built in France and Italy, was carrying 44 adult passengers, five crew and five children and infants.
The plane was flying between Jayapura's Sentani Airport and Oksibil, due south of Jayapura, the capital of Papua province, where air transport is in widespread use because travel by land is often impossible.
The airline's crisis center official in Jayapura's Sentani airport, Budiono, said all the passengers were Indonesians, and 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.
The airline released a public apology just after a search plane spotted the smoldering wreckage of the twin turboprop on Monday.
Wire services
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