Crashed Indonesian plane was carrying almost $500 000

INDONESIA – Rescue teams were poised to hike through rugged terrain Tuesday toward the wreckage of an Indonesian airliner with 54 people aboard that crashed into a mountain Sunday.

The search was to resume at daylight Tuesday for the plane, which an official said Monday had nearly $500,000 in cash on board for distribution to about 6,000 local residents in the remote eastern Indonesia region.

Four postal workers were on the plane escorting four bags of money totaling $468,750, said Franciscus Haryono, the head of the post office in the provincial capital of Jayapura.

The Jakarta Post reported that the funds were to be handed over symbolically to regent Wellinton Wenda during a ceremony Monday to celebrate the 70th Indonesian Independence Day.

The cash from the Social Affairs Ministry was to be distributed among poor people in remote areas to cushion the jump in fuel costs, Haryono said.

The government raised fuel prices last year and slashed government subsidies, a move the government said will save billions of dollars but has sparked angry protests around the country.

Heavy rain, high winds and some fog were reported in the area around the time the plane disappeared. Papua is home to miles-high mountains, sheer cliffs and dense rain forests.

A search plane spotted the wreckage Monday, but poor weather conditions and rugged terrain delayed attempts to reach the debris.

About 10 aircraft are involved in the search and rescue, but operations were stopped as darkness fell Monday and will restart at first light Tuesday, Heronimus Guru, deputy operations director of theNational Search and Rescue Agency, told the Associated Press.

The area is 13 hours ahead of U.S. Eastern time.

The wreckage of the aircraft was spotted about seven miles from its destination. Henry Bambang Soelistyo, chief of the National Search and Rescue Agency, said search and rescue teams were trying to reach the crash site by air and foot.

“Smoke was still billowing from the wreckage when it was spotted by a plane search,” said Soelistyo, who is leading the rescue operation from Sentani Airport in Jayapura, Indonesia. He said bad weather and rugged terrain were hampering efforts to reach the wreckage located at an altitude of about 8,500 feet.

He said elite forces from the air force and army will build a helipad for evacuation purposes near the crash site.

Indonesian Air Transportation Director General Suprasetyo said the plane was found Sunday by villagers who said it crashed into a mountain in Papua, the nation’s largest eastern province. There was no immediate word of any survivors among the 49 passengers — including five children — and crew of five.

All the passengers were Indonesians, according to the airline’s crisis center official, Budiono, who like many Indonesians uses only one name.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo  told reporters that he instructed the Transportation Ministry to improve aviation safety to prevent future crashes, the AP said.

The crash was the third catastrophe for the Southeast Asian nation’s beleaguered air transportation system in less than a year.

The Transportation Ministry said the Trigana Air Service flight lost contact 33 minutes into a 42-minute flight from the provincial capital of Jayapura bound for the city of Oksibil. There was no indication of a distress call from the French-built ATR 42-300twin turboprop plane, the ministry said.

Trigana, one of many Indonesian airlines banned from flying to Europe because of safety concerns, is a local airline founded in 1991. It has had 14 “accidents and incidents” since 1992, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.

Indonesia has made international headlines for two other deadly crashes. In June, more than 100 people died when a military plane crashed into a residential neighborhood in Medan, Indonesia’s third-largest city.

In December, an AirAsia planecrashed in the Java Sea en route from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore, killing all 162 people aboard. USA Today