JAYAPURA – A plane with 54 people on board has crashed in Indonesia’s remote and mountainous region of Papua, a government official has said, the latest in a string of aviation disasters in the South East Asian nation.

“The latest information is that the Trigana aircraft that lost contact has been found in the Ok Bape district of the Bintang Mountains regency,” a government official said.

“Residents provided information that the aircraft crashed into Tangok mountain.”

There was no immediate word on whether anyone survived.

The Trigana Air plane disappeared earlier on Sunday during a short flight from Papua’s capital Jayapura at 2.22pm local time for what should have been about a 40-minute flight to Oskibil.

A spokesman for the ministry said the plane was carrying 49 passengers and five crew members.

Oskibil is a remote settlement in the mountains, about 40 kilometres from the Papua New Guinea border, and only accessible by plane.

Ten minutes before it was due to land at 3.00pm local time, the plane contacted Oksibil control tower asking to descend, Trigana Air’s service director of operations captain Beni Sumaryanto said. But the plane never arrived.

Half an hour later, Trigana Air sent another turboprop plane over the same route to look for the missing aircraft, he said.

“But the weather was very bad, it could not find it and the plane was turned back to Sentani,” captain Sumaryanto said.

He added: “Oksibil is a mountainous area where weather is very unpredictable. It can suddenly turn foggy, dark and windy without warning.”

“We strongly suspect a weather issue. It was not overcapacity, as the plane could take 50 passengers.”

The wreckage was later discovered by villagers, who then alerted officials.

Trigana Air is a small airline established in 1991 that operates domestic services to around 40 destinations in Indonesia.

According to the Aviation Safety Network, an online database, the ATR 42-300 had its first flight 27 years ago.

ATR is a joint venture between Airbus and Alenia Aermacchi, a subsidiary of Italian aerospace firm Finmeccanica.

Trigana has been on the European Union blacklist of banned carriers since 2007.

Airlines on the list are barred from operating in European airspace due to either concerns about their safety standards, or concerns about the regulatory environment in their country of registration.

Trigana Air has a fleet of 14 aircraft with an average age of 26.6 years, according to the airfleets.com database.

These include 10 ATR aircraft and four Boeing 737 classics.

Trigana has had 14 serious incidents and written off 10 aircraft since it began operations in 1991, according to the Aviation Safety Network’s online database.

Small aircraft are commonly used for transport in remote, mountainous Papua, and bad weather has caused several accidents in recent years.

On Wednesday, a Cessna propeller plane operated by Indonesian company Komala Air crashed in Papua’s Yahukimo district, killing one person and seriously injuring the five others on board.

Officials suspect that crash was caused by bad weather.

Indonesia has a patchy aviation safety record and has seen two major plane crashes in the past year, including an AirAsia flight that crashed into the Java Sea during stormy weather in December, killing all 162 people on board.

That crash prompted the government to introduce regulations aimed at improving safety.

Indonesia’s president promised a review of the ageing air force fleet in July after a military transport plane crashed in the north of the country, killing more than 100 people.