Helicopter carrying eight loses contact in Indonesia

Indonesian authorities are searching for a helicopter with eight people on board after they lost contact with the chopper on Thursday, a rescue official told AFP.

The helicopter, owned by local firm Matthew Air Nusantara, took off from the West Kalimantan province on the Borneo island on Thursday, heading to another destination in the same province, according to the local search and rescue agency.

It was carrying two crew members and six passengers, and contact was lost around 8:10 am (0110 GMT).

Some 20 rescuers had been deployed to search the area of the missing aircraft's last known position, I Made Junetra, the head of the local search and rescue agency, told AFP.

He added that an Air Force helicopter was also deployed to assist with the search.

Indonesia, a vast Southeast Asian archipelago, relies heavily on air transport to connect its thousands of islands.

The country has a poor aviation safety record, with several fatal accidents in recent years.

A turboprop plane chartered by the fisheries ministry fatally crashed into a mountain on the island of Sulawesi in January, killing all 10 people on board.

In September last year, a helicopter carrying six passengers and two crew members crashed shortly after taking off from South Kalimantan province, killing everybody on board.

Four people were killed less than two weeks later when another helicopter crashed in the remote Papua district of Ilaga.