Chartered plane crashes in Kalimantan mountain

JAKARTA (JP): Search and Rescue (SAR) workers struggled yesterday to locate 10 people whose small chartered airplane crashed into a mountain in West Kalimantan in adverse weather on Monday.

The authorities have spotted the two-engine Britten Norman plane on Mt. Saran about 500 kilometers east of Pontianak, West Kalimantan's capital.

The 10 people aboard the aircraft, including its pilot and an infant, have not yet been found and it is not known whether any survived the crash, said Marsudi, a staff member of the SAR team in West Kalimantan.

The aircraft, owned by PT Dirgantara Air Service, was flying from Pontianak to Nanga Pinoh, a district town to the east. It crashed about 30 miles before reaching its destination, said Bambang S.A., the airline's operations systems manager.

Bambang attributed the crash to bad weather. He said the British-Canadian produced BN-2A aircraft was in good condition.

Marsudi told The Jakarta Post that adverse conditions made it difficult for the SAR team to reach the crash site yesterday.

The team, using a Puma helicopter and a small CN 235 aircraft, managed to get close to the crash site but was unable to reach the plane because of the rough terrain and unfavorable weather conditions.

Salam Susanto, spokesman of the Ministry of Transportation, told the Antara news agency that the wreckage was first spotted by the Mission Aviation Fellowship.

Marsudi said the passenger plane lost contact with the control tower approximately 90 minutes after it departed from Pontianak. An alarm was sounded when the plane was reported 18 minutes behind schedule in Nanga Pinoh. (prs)