The aircraft is believed to have crashed but no wreckage has been seen [Reuters]
The aircraft is believed to have crashed but no wreckage has been seen [Reuters]
The aircraft, a propeller-driven Twin Otter owned by Merpati airlines, disappeared while on a 50 minute flight from Sentani airport near Jayapura, the capital of Papua province, headed for the town of Oksibil, near the border with Papua New Guinea.
A search opertion has begun in Indonesia's eastern region of Papua after a passenger plane with 16 people went missing on Sunday.
Two rescue aircraft took off on Monday to begin the seach after bad weather had earlier hampered efforts to begin a hunt for the missing plane.
The aircraft which was carrying enough fuel for three-and-a-half hours flying is believed to have crashed, although no wreckage has been spotted.
"We're focusing our search on the border between Kerom and Pegunungan Bintang istricts... it's a mountainous, jungly region," Suwandi Miharja, the air force commander overseeing the search, told the AFP news agency.
"They're flying beneath the clouds. The weather is unfriendly... foggy and rainy."
Lost contact
Timeline Indonesia air disasters
Ground controllers lost contact with the plane as it flew over densely forested and mountainous area.
Indonesia has suffered a series of air disasters in recent years, affecting both its commercial and military aircraft.
Last month, the European Union removed four Indonesian airlines - flag carrier Garuda Indonesia, Mandala, Airfast and Premiair - off its blacklist of banned carriers, citing safety improvements.
However, the ban remains in place for all other Indonesian airlines.
Air travel is one of the few options for long-distance travel in sparsely-populated Papua and accidents are relatively common.
In the past some aircraft thought to have crashed in the region's dense jungle have never been found.
An Air Seychelles DHC-300 Twin Otter  
A plane carrying sixteen people has vanished over Papua, Indonesia. The Twin Otter propeller-driven aircraft has a crew of three and thirteen passengers, two of whom are babies.

The plane, which belonged to Merpati Nusantara Airlines, was travelling from Sentani Airport, Jayapura, Papua to Oksibil, a town near the Papua New Guinean border. The journey normally takes fifty minutes and only three hours and thirty minutes worth of fuel was on board. It is believed the aircraft has crashed.

Both transportation authorities and the military have launched bids to locate the missing plane, with at least two aircraft taking off to search for the aircraft. However, poor weather conditions have forced these aircraft to return to land.

The plane was over a mountainous area covered with dense forest when air traffic control lost contact. "We're focusing our search on the border between the Kerom and Pegunungan Bintang districts... it's a mountainous, jungly region," said air force commander Suwandi Miharja, who is in charge of the search. Aircraft lost in this region have sometimes never been located after suspected crashes.