Wreckage of Indonesian Turboprop Plane Found

Jakarta: Indonesian authorities today said they had found the wreckage of an Aviastar airline Twin Otter turboprop aircraft that went missing over Sulawesi island last week with 10 people on board.

The plane was found in the Enrekang region, around 240 km (150 miles) from the port city of Makassar in South Sulawesi, MetroTV said.

South Sulawesi police official Adex Yudiswan told Reuters that residents had found the plane. He gave no details about its condition or the fate of the passengers and crew.

The Aviastar plane lost contact with airport authorities on Friday during a flight from the town of Masamba about 30 minutes before it was scheduled to land in Makassar.

Indonesia has had three major crashes over the past year, including an AirAsia flight that went down in the sea between Surabaya and Singapore on Dec. 28, killing all 162 people aboard.

In August, a passenger airliner crashed in Papua killing all 54 people aboard. More than 100 people were killed in June in the crash of a military transport plane in the northern city of Medan, prompting the government to promise a review of the ageing air force fleet.