The teams on the ground have so far seen at least 38 bodies at the scene and haven’t found any survivors, said Bambang Soelistyo, the head of Indonesia’s search and rescue agency. Helicopters are being deployed to the densely forested area in the eastern Indonesian province of Papua to begin the evacuation process.

The aircraft’s black box flight recorder, which should provide investigators with some answers, was found in the early afternoon. The device will be taken to Oksibil town tomorrow, depending on the weather,

Its also been reported that An Indonesian passenger plane that crashed at the weekend in Papua was transporting about 6.5 billion rupiah ($470,000) in cash to distribute to poor families in the eastern province, a post office official said.

Indonesia’s state search and rescue agency had reported that it has lost contact with the aircraft earlier on Sunday.

In a tweet posted on Sunday, Bandan SAR Nasional or National Agency Search and Rescue said the Trigana Air flight had 54 passengers on board. The passengers include 44 adults, two children, three toddlers and five crew members.

According to the tweet, the aircraft lost contact while flying over the remote eastern Papua region at 2:55pm local time. reporting from Jakarta, said the plane was scheduled to land at a small airport in Oksibil at around 3pm local time (06:00 GMT) plane was scheduled to land at a small airport in Oksibil at around 3pm local time (06:00 GMT).Oksibil is a remote town near the country’s border with Papua New Guinea.

The plane was flying between Jayapura’s Sentani Airport and Oksibil, due south of Jayapura, the capital of Papua province. Indonesia’s transport ministry spokesman J.A. Barata confirmed the plane had lost contact and said it was supposed to arrive at Oksibil airport just after 4.00pm AEST.

According to the Aviation Safety Network, an online database, the ATR 42-300 had its first flight 27 years ago. ATR is a joint venture between Airbus and Alenia Aermacchi, a subsidiary of Italian aerospace firm Finmeccanica .

Trigana has been on the EU blacklist of banned carriers since 2007. Airlines on the list are barred from operating in European airspace due to either concerns about its safety standards, or concerns about the regulatory environment in its country of registration.

The airline has a fleet of 14 aircraft, according to the airfleets.com database. These include 10 ATR aircraft and four Boeing 737 classics. These have an average age of 26.6 years, according to the database.

Trigana has had 14 serious incidents since it began operations in 1991, according to the Aviation Safety Network’s online database. Excluding this latest incident, it has written off 10 aircraft. Indonesia has a patchy aviation safety record and has seen two major plane crashes in the past year, including an AirAsia flight that went down in the Java Sea, killing all on board.

That crash prompted the government to introduce regulations aimed at improving safety. Indonesia’s president promised a review of the ageing air force fleet in July after a military transport plane crashed in the north of the country, killing more than 100 people.

Reported source : reuters