JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Rescue workers said Monday there were no sign of survivors in the wreckage of a plane that crashed in a remote jungle mountain range in Indonesia’s Papua province, airport officials said.
The Twin Otter aircraft had been carrying four crew members as well as a woman and her 3-year-old daughter.
Abusani, an official at the Nabire airport on the northern coast of Papua, said rescuers arrived near the crash site and found shattered parts of the cargo plane. “It seems that there were no signs of survivors,” he said. Indonesians often use only one name.
Rescuers were cutting trees to build an emergency helipad to facilitate evacuation of survivors, if there are any, or bodies of the dead, he said.
A pilot in a Christian missionary plane spotted the wreckage early Monday on the slopes of Susu Mountain, about 30 miles southeast of Nabire, Abusani said.
The plane went missing on a short journey from Nabire to Enarotali village on Saturday.
Papua province, formerly known as Irian Jaya, occupies the western half of New Guinea at the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago.
It is one of the world’s last great tropical wildernesses. There are few roads and air travel is a common form of transport.
