Indonesian rescue services are searching for an ATR 42-500 plane used for aerial fishing surveillance that has gone missing with 11 people on board, officials said on Saturday. The Indonesia Air Transport plane lost contact with air traffic control at around 1:30 p.m. local time (07:30 Bulgarian time) in the Maros area of South Sulawesi province, local rescue service representative Andy Sultan told Reuters, reports News.bg.
The plane was flying to Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi, after taking off from Yogyakarta. There were eight crew members and three passengers on board.
Around 400 people, including military and police, are involved in the search operation, which has been hampered by bad weather conditions. Rescue teams are focusing on the area atop Mount Bulusaraung, where the plane is believed to have crashed.
The plane was chartered by Indonesia's Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, and the three passengers were ministry employees conducting aerial surveillance of fishing activities, state news agency Antara reported.
The ATR 42-500 is a regional turboprop aircraft with a capacity of between 42 and 50 passengers. According to unconfirmed data from Flightradar24, the aircraft was flying east over the Java Sea at an altitude of about 11,000 feet before it suddenly lost altitude and disappeared from tracking systems.
The French-Italian manufacturer ATR has been informed of the incident and is assisting local authorities with the investigation.