Indonesian authorities have launched an urgent search operation for a small passenger aircraft after all contact with the plane was lost on Saturday, officials told AFP.
The Indonesia Air Transport turboprop departed from Yogyakarta bound for Makassar on the island of Sulawesi, carrying a total of 11 people — three passengers and eight crew members. Contact was lost shortly after 1:00 p.m. local time (0600 GMT).
Muhammad Arif Anwar, head of the local search and rescue agency, said teams have been deployed to a remote mountainous region of Maros Regency, near Makassar and close to the plane’s last known position.
The search effort — involving the Indonesian air force, police, and volunteer teams — is underway both on the ground and from the air. Andi Sultan, operations chief at the Makassar search and rescue agency, confirmed that helicopters and drones are actively scouring the rugged terrain in hopes of locating the missing aircraft.
Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of thousands of islands, depends heavily on air travel to connect remote regions. However, the nation has struggled with aviation safety in recent years, suffering a number of deadly crashes.
In September of last year, a helicopter carrying six passengers and two crew went down shortly after departing South Kalimantan province, killing all onboard. Less than two weeks later, another helicopter crash in the remote Papua district of Ilaga claimed four lives.
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