Plane crash rescue bid hampered by terrain

Treacherous terrain in Indonesia’s Papua province hampered rescuers’ efforts to reach a passenger plane yesterday that crashed with 54 aboard, the latest in a string of aviation disasters in the sprawling southeast Asian archipelago.

Rescuers have yet to detect the plane’s black boxes and news of survivors depends on a team trekking slowly towards the mountainous area, said the rescue official overseeing the search.

“If it collided into a mountain, there has never been a case of survivors. But who knows, let’s wait,” said Major-General Heronimus Guru, operations director at Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency.

Rescue teams arriving at the site will have to build a helipad to fly in help, Guru told a news conference in the Indonesian capital, adding that 266 people were involved in the operation, while 11 aircraft scoured the thickly forested area.

Guru displayed grainy photographs of what is believed to be the site of Sunday’s crash of the Trigana Air Service ATR 42-300 plane, in the Bintang Mountains district.

Officials of Trigana, placed on the EU’s list of banned carriers since 2007 over safety or regulatory concerns, were not immediately available to respond to questions from Reuters.