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.