Missing aircraft found in foothills of Papua mountain
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.