RELATIVES OF MISSING PLANE'S PASSENGERS ARRIVE IN JAYAPURA

Jayapura, Papua, Aug 3 (ANTARA) - Relatives of missing plane's passengers have started to arrive in Sentani, Jayapura, to closely monitor the search for their loved ones.

They would follow closely the progress of the search for the missing plane, Eko, head of the Merpati local office at Sentani airport, said here on Monday.

The relatives of the ill-fated plane's engineer, pilot and co-pilot had already arrived in Sentani since Sunday afternoon.

The Twin Otter plane with 12 passengers, including two babies, on board, lost contact with the tower while flying from Jayapura to Oksibil, Pegunungan Bintang District, on Sunday (Aug 2).

However, the plane had earlier made a contact with the pilot of an Indonesian Air Force's Cassa aircraft flying from Oksibil to Sentani, before it lost contact with the tower.

The MZ 9760 D aircraft which took off from Jayapura at 10.15 a.m. Eastern Indonesia Standard Time (WIT) was scheduled to arrive at 11.05 a.m. WIT, PT. Merpati's operations director Capt. Nikmatullah said here on Sunday.

A land and air search will be conducted to find a Twin Otter aircraft belonging to the state-owned Merpati Nusantara Airlines that went missing here on Sunday.

Chief of the Jayapura air base Col. Suwandi Miharja said here on Sunday that his side was preparing a team and five planes for search of the missing aircraft on Monday (Aug 3) morning.

The five planes which be provided are from the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), Associated Mission Aviation (AMA), Yayasan Jasa Aviasi Indonesia (Yajasi), Twin Otter of Merpati Airlines and an Air Force Cassa place, he said.

The Twin Otter plane was conducting its routine flights twice daily with Pilot Qadrianova, Co-pilot Pramudya and Technician Supriadi.

Before taking off, the Twin Otter plane had already undergone the routine airworthiness check and a full tank for 3.5 hours of flying, but it needs only 55 minutes to cover this route.