JAKARTA An aircraft with 54 people on board crashed in Indonesia's remote and mountainous region of Papua on Sunday, a government official said, the latest in a string of aviation disasters in the Southeast Asian nation. 
 
 "The latest information is that the Trigana aircraft that lost contact has been found at Camp 3, Ok Bape district in the Bintang Mountains regency," Air Transportation Director General Suprasetyo told reporters. "Residents provided information that the aircraft crashed into Tangok mountain." 
 
 There was no immediate word on whether anyone survived. 
 
 Earlier, the National Search and Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) said a twin-turboprop plane had lost contact with air traffic control as it flew over the forested area of eastern Indonesia but efforts to trace it were difficult because of failing light. 
 
 Trigana Air Operations Director Beni Sumaryanto said that within 30 minutes of hearing that the aircraft was missing, the airline sent another plane to scour the same flight path but it had found nothing because of bad weather, local media reported. 
 
 According to the official BASARNAS Twitter account, the aircraft, a short-haul ATR 42-300 airliner belonging to Trigana Air Service and built in France and Italy, was carrying 44 adult passengers, five crew and five children and infants. 
 
 The plane was flying between Jayapura's Sentani Airport and Oksibil, due south of Jayapura, the capital of Papua province. 
 
 Air transport is commonly used in Papua, Indonesia's easternmost province, where land travel is often impossible. 
 
 According to the Aviation Safety Network, an online database, the ATR 42-300 that went missing made its first flight 27 years ago. ATR is a joint venture between Airbus (AIR.PA) and Alenia Aermacchi, a subsidiary of Italian aerospace firm Finmeccanica (SIFI.MI). 
 
 The airline has been on the EU's list of banned carriers since 2007. Airlines on the list are barred from operating in European airspace due to either concerns about safety standards or the regulatory environment in their country of registration. 
 
 The airline has a fleet of 14 aircraft, according to the airfleets.com database. These include 10 ATR aircraft and four Boeing 737 Classics. These have an average age of 26.6 years, according to the database. 
 
 Trigana has had 14 serious incidents since it began operations in 1991, according to the Aviation Safety Network. Excluding this latest incident, it has written off 10 aircraft. 
 
 Airline officials were not immediately available to respond to enquiries from Reuters. 
 
 Indonesia has a patchy aviation safety record and has seen two major plane crashes in the past year, including an AirAsia flight that went down in the Java Sea, killing all on board. 
 
 The AirAsia crash prompted the Indonesian 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. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Siva Govindasamy in Singapore; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Dale Hudson) ||||| Image copyright AP Image caption The missing plane, pictured in 2010 
 
 The wreckage of an Indonesian plane which went missing with 54 people on board has been spotted in the remote western Papua region, officials say. 
 
 The Trigana Air flight lost contact at 14:55 local time (05:55 GMT) on Sunday as it flew from the provincial capital, Jayapura, to the town of Oksibil. 
 
 Indonesia's transport minister said the aircraft had been found by local people in the Bintang highlands region. 
 
 A search plane has also now spotted suspected debris. 
 
 Indonesia's postal office has told the BBC that the plane was carrying four bags containing cash, about 6.5 billion rupiah ($486,000; £300,000), for villagers living in remote places in Papua. 
 
 "Our colleagues carry those bags to be handed out directly to poor people over there," said the head of Jayapura's post office, Haryono, who goes by only his first name. 
 
 'Pray together' 
 
 The ATR42-300 twin turboprop plane was carrying 44 adult passengers, five children and infants, and five crew. It is not yet known if anyone survived. 
 
 It took off from Sentani airport in Jayapura at 14:21, but lost contact with air traffic controllers half an hour later. 
 
 Bintang Mountains Regency Police Chief Yunus Wally told the Antara news agency that the debris was seen near a waterfall by a search plane on Monday, and that ground teams were preparing to head to the area. 
 
 Henry Bambang Soelistyo, chief of Indonesia's national search and rescue agency, told AP news agency that "smoke was still billowing" from the debris spotted by their plane. He said bad weather and rugged terrain were hampering efforts to reach the site. 
 
 Villagers had earlier told officials that a plane had crashed into a mountain. 
 
 Indonesian President Joko Widodo has expressed his condolences on Twitter and called for the country to "pray together" for the victims. 
 
 Image copyright EPA Image caption Family members have been waiting for news of their loved ones 
 
 Oksibil, which is about 280km (175 miles) south of Jayapura, is a remote, mountainous region, which is extremely difficult to navigate. 
 
 Bad weather is believed to have been a possible reason for the crash. 
 
 The search plane was forced to turn back on Sunday because of dangerous flying conditions. 
 
 On blacklist 
 
 Trigana Air has had 14 serious incidents since it began operations in 1991, losing 10 aircraft in the process, according to the Aviation Safety Network. 
 
 It has been on a European Union blacklist of banned carriers since 2007. All but four of Indonesia's certified airlines are on the list. 
 
 Indonesia has suffered two major air disasters in the past year. 
 
 Last December an AirAsia plane crashed in the Java Sea, killing all 192 people on board - and in July a military transport plane crashed in a residential area of Medan, Sumatra claiming 140 lives. 
 
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– Wreckage of the Indonesian passenger plane that went missing today has been found, a transportation official tells Reuters, and early indications are that it crashed into a mountainside in remote terrain in eastern Papua. The Trigana Air Service plane, a twin turboprop, issued no distress signal before it went down, reports CNN, and it may have run into bad weather in the mountainous region. The BBC notes that a second plane sent to look for the missing one was forced back by dangerous conditions. Villagers reported seeing the plane crash into the side of a mountain; it's not yet known if there are any survivors.