Plane carrying 13 missing in PNG

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SYDNEY, Aug 11 (AP): A charter plane carrying 13 people - including nine Australians - to a popular tourist site in Papua New Guinea vanished on approach to an airport Tuesday, the airline and Australia's foreign minister said.
The twin-engine plane left the capital of Port Moresby en route to an airport near the country's Kokoda Track, a mountainous 100-kilometre trail. The plane's crew radioed air traffic controllers as it was approaching the airstrip, but the aircraft never landed, said Allen Tyson, a spokesman for Airlines PNG.
A search and rescue mission was immediately launched, Tyson said. The plane, carrying 11 passengers and two crew, had an emergency locator beacon but it was not transmitting, he said. No further information was immediately available, he said.