NEW GUINEA: Twelve people have been killed when a light plane crashed in remote Papua New Guinea, reports said on Thursday.
According to officials, the aircraft was flying in the rugged west of the Pacific nation on Wednesday afternoon when its engine failed mid-air, sending it into a nose-dive.
“A small plane that arrived from Oksapmin just before landing crashed into the swamp, with all the passengers, including the pilot, dead,” Kiunga’s police commander Joe Puri told local media.
“It crashed into a swamp close to Kiunga airstrip,” he said.
According to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, the pilot of the Sunbird Aviation flight was Australian national.
