Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency said the aircraft belonging to local carrier Trigana Air disappeared at around 3:00 p.m. (0600 UTC) after taking off from Papua's capital Jayapura en route to the Papua city of Oksibil.

According to the agency, the ATR42-300 twin turboprop flight was carrying 44 adult passengers, five crew and five children. The trip was scheduled to take 45-55 minutes.

Transport Ministry spokesman Julius Barata said the plane lost contact with air traffic control about half an hour after takeoff.

"We are not sure what happened to the plane yet and we are coordinating with local authorities," he told AFP. "The weather is currently very bad there, it's very dark and cloudy. It's not conducive for a search. The area is mountainous."

Trigana Air's service director of operations, Beni Sumaryanto, told AFP that another turboprop plane had been sent out to look for the missing aircraft, without success. A search for the plane will resume on Monday at first light.

Small aircraft are routinely used to get around remote Papua, where rugged terrain and dense forests often make land travel impossible.

Trigana Air is a small airline running domestic services to around 40 destinations in Indonesia. According to the Aviation Safety Network, the company has had 14 serious incidents since it began operations in 1991. It has written off at least 10 aircraft and has been on the EU blacklist of carriers banned from entering European airspace since 2007.

Indonesia has a patchy aviation safety record. Last December, an AirAsia passenger plane flying from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore crashed in the Java Sea, killing all 162 people on board. The crash prompted the government to introduce regulations aimed at improving safety.

nm/bk (Reuters, AFP, AP)