An official of Indonesia’s Transport Ministry has confirmed the death of 27 people on board a plane that crashed on Saturday in Indonesia’s eastern province of West Papua, the BBC reported on Sunday.
The Indonesian Navy command earlier reported that 25 people had been killed in the air crash. Later reports said there had been 27 people aboard the plane. All of them, 21 passengers and six crewmembers, died in the air crash.
The Chinese-made Xian MA-60 plane belonging to a state-owned firm was en route from the town of Sorong to Kaimana when it came down in the ocean just several hundred meters from the Kaimana airport, police said.
The cause of the accident is not yet known, although a local airport official said bad weather could have been a factor in the crash.
MOSCOW, May 8 (RIA Novosti)