Missing aircraft found in foothills of Papua mountain

Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura

The GT Air Twin Otter aircraft that went missing on Tuesday with 17 people on board was found on Sunday at the foot of Boba mountain on the border between East Paniai district and Dumadama district, near Enarotali, Papua.

The fate of the people on board of the aircraft, which went missing on a flight from Timika to Enarotali, the capital of Paniai regency, was still unknown as bad weather forced a halt to rescue efforts on Sunday.

Paniai Police chief Sr. Adj. Comr. Anthonius Diance told The Jakarta Post by phone from Enarotali that the wreckage of the aircraft was spotted by an Association Mission Aviation (AMA) aircraft, which was involved in the search.

The AMA aircraft, which was piloted by Heni with Erick as co- pilot, took two GT Air pilots, Setya and Agung, to conduct the search.

"The AMA aircraft spotted the remains of the aircraft in the foothills of Boba mountain on the border between East Paniai district and Dumadama district, some three minutes flight-time from Enarotali," Anthonius said.

The missing aircraft was spotted at 6:36 a.m. local time, or 4:36 a.m. Jakarta time.

Although the aircraft has been found, rescue workers have not been able to get to the crash site due to the inaccessible location and bad weather.

Some 13 rescue workers have been deployed near the location to clear a place for helicopters to land so that communications equipment can be brought in.

"Some 10 more members from the search and rescue team were also to have been deployed but because of the bad weather, they had to return to Timika," John Rettob, head of the air transportation division of the Mimika transportation office and spokesman for the search and rescue team, told the Post from Timika.

Three aircraft, two helicopters belonging to Air Fast and the National Police, and a Sky Truck aircraft from the National Police, are standing by to evacuate the survivors or the bodies of the victims as the case may be.

"We'll start the evacuation process tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. (local time)," John said.

He said the cause of the crash was not yet known, but assumed that the plane had crashed into the mountain side based on its position when found.

Papua and its neighboring province, West Irian Jaya, rely heavily on air communications and the accident on Tuesday adds to a number of recent crashes in the mountainous area.

In February, 15 people were killed when a Casa 212 police aircraft nose-dived into an estuary meters away from the runway at Papua's Sarmi Airport. Later in the same month, an aircraft struck a fence while landing at the Enarotali airstrip, causing wing damage but no casualties.