News report from Friday edition of 'The Age' newspaper gives a few more details:
An Australian pilot has survived a plane crash in Papua New Guinea's north coast in which 28 people are believed to have died.
Only four people are believed to have survived the crash in dense forest, near the mouth of the Gogol River, about 20 kilometres south of the resort centre of Madang.
Airlines PNG Dash 8 plane, which was carrying 32 people, was on a flight from Lae, PNG's second largest city, to Madang, when it crashed about 5pm (6pm AEDT) yesterday.
"All I can tell you is there have been reports of survivors and reports there have been fatalities," the PNG Accident Investigation Commission's (AIC) spokesman, Sid O'Toole, told AAP. He said it wasn't clear how many survivors there were.
The 64-year-old Australian pilot, from Queensland, has decades of experience flying in PNG. The other survivor was a New Zealand pilot, a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) spokeswoman said.
She said there were no indications at this stage that Australians were among those who died, adding that the Australian High Commission in Port Moresby has been liaising with Airlines PNG and local authorities.
Consular officials would be travelling to Madang today, she added.
Airlines PNG grounds its fleet
Airlines PNG confirmed one of its Dash 8 aircraft has crashed near Madang and grounded its fleet of 12 aircraft until further notice.
A spokesman for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), Australia's national transport safety investigator, said they had not been contacted to assist in investigating the crash.
The ATSB has previously assisted the AIC in crash investigations.