Surveillance Plane With 11 On Board Vanishes In Indonesia, Rescue Teams Rush To Suspected Crash Site

Indonesian rescue teams were searching on Saturday for a fisheries surveillance aircraft that went missing with 11 people on board. Officials said the aircraft, an ATR 42-500 operated by Indonesia Air Transport, lost contact with air traffic control around 1:30 p.m. local time in the Maros region of South Sulawesi.

Andi Sultan, an official from the local rescue agency, told Reuters that the plane was flying toward Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi, after taking off from Yogyakarta province when communication was suddenly lost. He said there were eight crew members and three passengers on board.

Search operations were launched quickly, with around 400 personnel deployed, including teams from the military and police. However, Sultan said bad weather was making rescue efforts difficult. He did not speculate on what may have caused the incident.

Officials believe the plane went down near Mount Bulusaraung

“We suspect the plane came down near the peak of Mount Bulusaraung. We have deployed our personnel there,” he said.

The aircraft was chartered by Indonesia’s Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries. Ministry official Pung Nugroho Saksono confirmed this to state news agency Antara. Marine Affairs and Fisheries Minister Sakti Wahyu Trenggono said the three passengers on board were ministry employees who were carrying out air surveillance related to fisheries.

The ATR 42-500 is a regional turboprop aircraft that can carry between 42 and 50 passengers and is commonly used for short-haul flights and special missions.

Unconfirmed data from Flightradar24 showed that an aircraft matching the plane’s description was flying east over the Java Sea at around 11,000 feet before it suddenly lost altitude and disappeared from tracking systems.

Meanwhile, aircraft manufacturer ATR, based in France, said it was aware of the incident. The Franco-Italian planemaker said it had been informed of an accident in Indonesia and that its specialists were assisting local authorities as investigations began.

Rescue teams continue to search the mountainous area where the plane is believed to have gone down.

(With Inputs from Reuters)

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