Indonesian rescuers say no survivors at wreckage of crashed plane

A screen grab of a handout photograph released by Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) shows what is believed to be the site of Sunday's crash of the Trigana Air Service ATR 42-300 plane, in the heavily forested Bintang Mountains district, Papua province, Indonesia August 17, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

Poor infrastructure in the province means aid money is often flown in by air, said Abu Sofjan, spokesman for the national postal service, four of whose workers were among the passengers.

There was no suggestion the money was somehow linked to the crash.

Five members of the Bintang Highlands district parliament and government were also on board, online news service detik.com reported. Reuters was not able to verify the report.

All on board were Indonesian, officials have said.

Officials of Trigana, placed on a European Union list of banned carriers since 2007 over safety or regulatory concerns, were not immediately available to respond to questions from Reuters.

The aircraft made its first flight 27 years ago, the Aviation Safety Network says. Trigana Air Service has a fleet of 14 aircraft, aged 26.6 years on average, according to the airfleets.net database.

Trigana has had 14 serious incidents since it began operations in 1991, online database Aviation Safety Network says. Besides the latest crash, it has written off 10 aircraft.

Indonesia has a patchy aviation record, with other two major crashes in the past year.

In December, an AirAsia flight went down in the Java Sea, killing all 162 aboard. More than 100 people died in June in a crash of a military transport plane.

Indonesia scored poorly on a 2014 safety audit by the UN aviation agency largely because its Ministry of Transportation is understaffed, said two sources familiar with the matter, as the country struggles to cope with the rapid expansion of air travel.

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