Missing Aviastar plane located

MAKASSAR. A police evacuation team has found the ill-fated Aviastar airplane, which has been missing since Friday, at Mount Latimojong in South Sulawesi, an officer stated on Monday.

South Sulawesi and West Sulawesi Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. F Barung Mangera said that the body of the DHC-6 Twin Otter light aircraft, flying between Masamba and Makassar, went down on Mount Latimojong, Enrekang district.

"The Aviastar aircraft has been discovered at last by the National Police’s evacuation team who have scoured the mountain for two days," Barung said as quoted by kompas.com.

The plane’s manifest showed that there were 10 passengers on board: seven adults, one child and two babies. The plane was also carrying a crew of three: a pilot, a copilot and a technician.

The plane reportedly took off from Andi Djemma Airport in Masamba at 2:25 p.m. (local time) to fly to Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport in Makassar.

"According to schedule the plane should have arrived at 3:35 p.m. local time, but there was still no sign of it at 6:05 p.m. The last contact was made 11 minutes after it departed from Masamba, possibly [while it was flying] near the Palopo region," Barung said.

Barung also said that the police had opened ante-mortem posts at three locations including Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport, Bhayangkara hospital and one hotel in Makassar. All the passengers’ and crew members' identification data were being collected at the Bhayangkara hospital.

Earlier on Monday, Aviastar airlines management stated that they would bear all accommodation and transportation costs for the crew and passengers’ families who wanted to come to Makassar to find out more about the tragedy.

On Monday, all the passenger's families and some of the crew's families had already flown to Makassar, not only to seek more information about their missing family members but to assist police with the identification process later on.

“Some of the crew's families are still in Jakarta,” said Aviastar airlines spokeperson Sherly Silvana on Monday as reported by tempo.co.