Contact with the plane is believed to have been lost just over half an hour after take-off.
A Trigana Air plane with 54 people on board went missing over Indonesia this morning, according to Indonesian officials.
The plane, which took off from Sentani airport in Jayapura, the capital of the Papua region of Indonesia, is carrying 54 people, including 44 adults, five children and five crew.
Contact was lost with the plane just before 3pm local time today (6am GMT), just over half an hour after it took off from Sentani Airport.
Transport ministry spokesman Julius Barata confirmed the disappearance, telling AFP: “We are not sure what happened to the plane yet and we are co-ordinating with local authorities.
“The weather is currently very bad there, it’s very dark and cloudy. It’s not conducive for a search. The area is mountainous.”
According to figures from the Aviation Safety Network, 14 serious incidents have occurred on Trigana airplanes since the airline began operating in 1991, including the loss of 10 airlines.
Trigana has been on a European blacklist of banned carriers since 2007, along with all but four airlines operating out of Indonesia, whose aviation safety record has been questionable over the years.
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