Plane carrying sixteen people vanishes over Papua, Indonesia

Monday, August 3, 2009

A plane carrying sixteen people has vanished over Papua, Indonesia. The Twin Otter propeller-driven aircraft has a crew of three and thirteen passengers, two of whom are babies.

The plane, which belonged to Merpati Nusantara Airlines, was travelling from Sentani Airport, Jayapura, Papua to Oksibil, a town near the Papua New Guinean border. The journey normally takes fifty minutes and only three hours and thirty minutes worth of fuel was on board. It is believed the aircraft has crashed.

Both transportation authorities and the military have launched bids to locate the missing plane, with at least two aircraft taking off to search for the aircraft. However, poor weather conditions have forced these aircraft to return to land.

The plane was over a mountainous area covered with dense forest when air traffic control lost contact. "We're focusing our search on the border between [the] Kerom and Pegunungan Bintang districts... it's a mountainous, jungly region," said air force commander Suwandi Miharja, who is in charge of the search. Aircraft lost in this region have sometimes never been located after suspected crashes.

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!

Sources

"Plane missing in Indonesia's Papua" — Al Jazeera English, August 3, 2009
"Plane with 16 people missing in Indonesia's Papua" — Reuters, August 2, 2009

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.