AKIPRESS.COM - An Indonesian passenger plane that went missing two days ago was destroyed when it slammed into a mountain, killing all 54 people on board, the country's top rescue official said.

Rescuers only reached the crash site Tuesday after being hindered by rugged, forested terrain and bad weather.

"The plane was totally destroyed and all the bodies were burned and difficult to identify," National Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo told The Associated Press. "There is no chance anyone survived."

He said that so far 53 bodies had been recovered, and that they would be taken to Jayapura, the capital of Papua province, so they can be identified.

Smoldering wreckage of the Trigana Air Service turboprop plane was spotted from the air Monday. The ATR42-300 twin turboprop plane was flying from Jayapura to the city of Oksibil when it lost contact.

The plane was carrying 49 passengers and five crew members on a scheduled 42-minute flight. Five children, including two infants, were among the passengers.

The passengers included four postal workers aboard the plane were escorting four bags of cash totaling $468,750 in government aid for poor families to help offset a spike in fuel prices, Franciscus Haryono, the head of the post office in Jayapura, the provincial capital, told The Associated Press.

The cash from the Social Affairs Ministry was to be distributed among poor people in remote areas to cushion the jump in fuel costs, Haryono said.