Indonesian airliner carrying 54 loses contact over Papua

(Associated Press)

August 16, 2015 - 4:48am

In this March 15, 2014, photo, paper planes with personalized messages dedicated to people involved with the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner MH370, are placed at the viewing gallery of Kuala Lumpur International Airport, in Sepang, Malaysia. Part of the mystery of what happened to a Malaysia Airlines plane that vanished last year may be solved with air safety investigators confident that debris found in the Indian Ocean is a wing part unique to the Boeing 777, the same model as the missing jet, a U.S. official said Wednesday, July 29, 2015. Air safety investigators — one of them a Boeing investigator —have identified the component that was found on the French island of Reunion in the western Indian Ocean as a "flaperon" from the trailing edge of a 777 wing, the U.S. official said. AP/Wong Maye-E

JAKARTA, Indonesia — An Indonesian airliner carrying 54 people was missing Sunday after it lost contact with ground control during a short flight in the country's easternmost province of Papua, an official said.

The Trigana Air Service plane was flying from Papua's provincial capital, Jayapura, to the Papua city of Oksibil when it lost contact with Oksibil's airport, said Transportation Ministry spokesman Julius Barata.

The ATR42-300 twin turboprop plane was carrying 49 passengers and five crew members on the scheduled 42-minute journey, he said.

The plane lost contact with the airport nine minutes before it was scheduled to land, Barata said.

Indonesia has had its share of airline woes in recent years. The sprawling archipelago nation of 250 million people and some 17,000 islands is one of Asia's most rapidly expanding airline markets, but is struggling to provide enough qualified pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers and updated airport technology to ensure safety.

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