A passenger plane that vanished over Indonesia’s Papua region with 54 people on board today has been found crashed by local villagers, a transport official has reported.

The Trigana Air plane, flight number TGN267, disappeared in bad weather over the mountainous easternmost region.

It lost contact with air controllers 33 minutes after taking off, during the 45-minute journey between Sentani airport in the region’s capital Jayapura and the Oksibil settlement, located to the south of the city.

Officials have reported that the wreckage of the plane has been found, by residents in the village of Okbape.

Villagers had reported seeing a plane flying very low over the area, before crashing into the mountains.

Around 150 rescuers headed to the area, but the search effort was reported to have postponed until daybreak as bad weather and the dark were making the search impossible.

‘The plane has been found. According to residents, the flight had crashed into a mountain. Verification is still in process,’ said the transport ministry’s director-general of air transportation, Suprasetyo.

Just 10 minutes before the ATR42-300 plane was due to land, the pilot contact Oksibil control tower to ask permission to descend, according to Captain Beni Sumaryanto, Trigana Air’s service director of operations.

But the plane never arrived, and there was no indication the pilot made a distress call.

The plane lost contact just before 3.00pm (6.00am GMT). - - Daily Mail