A plane transporting 54 people from Jayapura to Oskibil has gone missing. Approximately ten minutes before the scheduled landing, the plane contacted the control tower in Oksibil requesting permission to descend, however the plane never arrived.
The missing Trigana Air flight is said to be carrying 49 people including five small children and five crew members. The plane took off from Jayapura at 2:22pm local time for what was supposed to be a quick 40-minute flight to Oskibil.
When the plane never arrived, Trigana Air sent turboprop plane to travel the same route to look for the missing aircraft. According to Trigana Air’s service director of operations captain Beni Sumaryanto, “The weather was very bad, it could not find it and the plane was turned back to Sentani.” He also said, “Oksibil is a mountainous area where weather is very unpredictable. It can suddenly turn foggy, dark and windy without warning,” adding, “We strongly suspect it’s a weather issue. It is not overcapacity, as the plane could take 50 passengers.”
Bambang Soelystyo, of the National Search and Rescue Agency BASARNAS, said: “We can’t confirm it has crashed. We can say contact has been lost with the plane.”
It is still very unclear what happened to the aircraft however, officials believe that weather may have played a huge role in it’s disappearance. Reports indicate that the weather was clear when the play took off in Jayapura however, there were signs of thunderstorms over a mountainous area in the flight path.
The Trigana Air plane is one of at least three planes to go missing near Asia over the past year. Trigana Air Service is one of many airlines banned from flying. According to the European Commission, it’s “because they are found to be unsafe and/or they are not sufficiently overseen by their authorities.”
Source CNN
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