Indonesian authorities reported on Sunday that during the search operation for the aircraft that lost contact the previous day with a control tower in the central-eastern archipelago region, with 10 people on board, a fuselage was found that is 'suspected to correspond' to the aircraft. 'We received information that a small fragment of debris from an aircraft window had been spotted. At 7:49 a.m. local time (23:49 GMT Saturday), we found a fuselage that is suspected to correspond to the plane,' said Andi Sultan, a staff member of the Makassar division of the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas), in a video released by the agency. The aircraft, an ATR 42-500, departed on Saturday from Yogyakarta (west) and was scheduled to land at Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport in Makassar (central-east), when Air Traffic Control (ATC) 'lost communication with the aircraft,' in which there were seven crew members and three passengers, explained the Directorate General of Civil Aviation of Indonesia in a statement. The search operation for the aircraft, involving hundreds of personnel, resumed today at 6:15 a.m. local time (22:15 GMT Saturday), after being halted overnight 'due to cloudy skies,' Basarnas Director Mohammad Syafii said the previous day. The search area includes the limestone mountains of Bantimurung, in the Maros regency, part of South Sulawesi province, located east of the island of Borneo, famous for its tropical rainforests. The aircraft, operated by local aviation company Indonesia Air Transport, had been chartered by the Ministry of Fisheries, which conducts aerial resource monitoring, and on board were three ministry officials, according to authorities. The timeline released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation details that the Makassar ATC instructed the aircraft to approach a runway at Sultan Hasanuddin Airport, but detected that the aircraft was 'not on the correct approach trajectory' and again directed the crew to correct its position. After these instructions, 'communication with the aircraft was lost,' for still unknown reasons. Weather conditions at the time of the incident were slightly cloudy in the surrounding area, with visibility of about eight kilometers. The country's Air Force is participating in 'monitoring the situation and ensuring optimal response measures,' joining them were the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the Office of the V Regional Airport Authority of Makassar, AirNav Indonesia (air navigation service provider), Basarnas, flight operators, and other relevant agencies. 'We received information that a small fragment of debris from an aircraft window had been spotted. At 7:49 a.m. local time (23:49 GMT Saturday), we found a fuselage that is suspected to correspond to the plane.'
