Wreckage Reportedly Spotted in Search for Indonesian Airliner Carrying 54 People
Plane lost contact with airport nine minutes before it was supposed to land.
— -- The wreckage of an Indonesian twin turboprop plane carrying 54 people that went missing after losing contact with ground control Sunday during a flight over the country's province of Papua has been spotted, rescue officials said.
The flight of the Trigana Air Service plane from Papua's provincial capital Jayapura to the Papula city of Oksibil was supposed to take 42 minutes. A Transportation Ministry spokesman said the plane lost contact with Oksibil's airport nine minutes before it was supposed to land.
Officials said the wreckage was spotted about 7 miles from Oksibil, and National Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said teams were preparing to try to reach the crash site by air and foot.
It was not clear whether there were any survivors of the crash, which occurred during difficult weather conditions in the mountainous region.
The reported sighting of the wreckage came after the search and rescue agency, Badan SAR Nasional (BASARNAS), resumed the search Monday morning local time, after it had been suspended for the night.
Search planes went into the air early Monday after residents of a village not far from Oksibil told local police that they saw a plane flying low before crashing into a mountain, the man who heads the search and rescue operation from Jayapura told The Associated Press.
ABC News' Joohee Cho and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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