JAKARTA. The Transportation Ministry has said that the 54 victims of the crashed Trigana aircraft, which lost contact on Sunday afternoon, have been recovered.

“According to the latest information, received at 12:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, the number of the Trigana crash victims recovered has reached 54 people,” the ministry’s head of public communications, JA Barata, said in a press statement as quoted by Antara in Jakarta on Tuesday.

“All bodies are still at the crash site and cannot yet be evacuated,” said Barata.

It was earlier reported that as of 11:00 a.m. local time, 38 bodies, comprising 37 adults and one child, had been recovered.

Trigana Air flight IL 267, a PK-YRN aircraft, lost contact while travelling from Jayapura to Oksibil on Sunday afternoon. The flight took off from Sentani Airport in Jayapura at 2:22 p.m. local time on Sunday and it should have arrived in Oksibil at 3:04 p.m. The ill-fated plane was reported missing after it made its last contact with Oksibil air traffic control at 2:55 p.m.

The Trigana aircraft had 49 passengers on board, comprising 44 adults, three children and two babies, and five crew members. The crew members were pilot Capt. Hasanudin, Flight Officer Ariadin F, engineer Mario and two flight attendants, Ika N and Dita A. (ebf)

Editor: Yudho Winarto