Bad weather hampers search for plane in Central Java

The National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) has temporarily halted the search for a missing airplane carrying 3 people due to bad weather in Central Java.

“As of 9 a.m. [Saturday], cloud cover was low; by 2 p.m. it was already raining,” Basarnas operations chief Sunarbowo said on Sunday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Sunarbowo said the search was halted on Saturday due to inclement weather. “Today [Sunday] the weather is predicted to be very bad.”

Almost 300 personnel reported no results in their search for the plane along its flight path near Mount Burangrang, Mount Singgalang, Cikole village and Lembang lake in West Java, Sunarbowo said.

The Cessna C172-PK NIP, used to train aviation students, left Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in East Jakarta at 7:33 a.m. Wednesday. Air traffic controllers reported the aircraft missing at 8:53 a.m. after losing contact.

Three people were on board the aircraft: pilot instructor Capt.Partogi Sianipar, 25, and students Muhammad Fikriansyah, 19, and Agung Febrian.