Indonesian authorities said they had located the wreckage of a fisheries surveillance plane that went missing in South Sulawesi province near a fog-covered mountain, but were still searching for the 11 people on board.

The ATR 42-500 turboprop owned by aviation group Indonesia Air Transport lost contact with air traffic control on Saturday at about 1:30 p.m. local time (0530 GMT) around the Maros region in South Sulawesi.

There were eight crew members and three passengers on board the plane, which was chartered by Indonesia's Marine Affairs and Fisheries Ministry to conduct air surveillance on fisheries. The passengers were ministry staff members.

The head of South Sulawesi's rescue agency, Muhammad Arif Anwar, said on local television that after finding the wreckage, the rescuers would deploy 1,200 personnel to search for the missing passengers and crew.

"Our priority is to search for the victims, and we hope that there are some that we can evacuate safely," he said on Sunday.

The aircraft had been heading to Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi, after departing from Yogyakarta province before contact was lost.