"I received a report it has no blackbox," he told newsmen.

Although no flight recorder was available investigation would be continued using other tools or methods such as an analysis of mistakes.

He expected the result of initial investigation into the incident and recommendations to be able to be completed in a month.

He said the case was strange because the plane was not for special purposes like military aircraft but for general purposes such as carrying passengers.

"According to regulations, a blackbox must be made available in a plane used for public transportation," he said.

Tatang however could not confirm if the regulation also applied to small aircraft. "I have not checked it," he said. He said a black box and other navigation instruments could be made available at a small plane like Pilatus PC-6 that crashed in Papua if its buyer ordered them.

"The question now is if the buyer wants them or not not because they  may increase the price of the plane," he said.

A baby was among the eight passengers of the ill-fated Mimika Air plane that carried elections result documents.

Transport Minister Jusman Syafii Djamal said earlier that the plane was just one year old, assembled in Switzerland in February 2008 and bought by the Mimika district administration at a cost of Rp25 billion.

The plane was registered for the first time in Indonesia on September 18, 2008 under the name of Mimika Air with a registration number 2512 PK-LTJ and had flown for 542 hours. (*)