Air Force's missing helicopter still no where to be found

Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post/Jayapura

Despite assistance from the Singapore Air Force, the search to find an Air Force helicopter that went missing on Oct. 12 near Jayapura in Papua, has not borne results, an official said on Monday.

The Singapore Air Force had sent a special 29-member team, led by Lt. Col. Anselm Morais, along with an unmanned aircraft to assist in finding the missing helicopter, which has further added to the long list of military aviation accidents in Indonesia.

The Singapore team, which arrived in Jayapura on Oct. 27 aboard two Hercules aircraft, searched for a week using a sophisticated Unmanned Air Vehicle, or drone.

The aircraft was equipped with an infrared video camera and operated from the control tower at the Sentani Air Base near Jayapura. The drone can fly non-stop for seven hours.

"The result is nothing," the commander of Jayapura Air Force Base, Col. Anang Murdianto, told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

"The teams returned to Singapore in two phases; the first batch left on Nov. 2, and the second left on Nov. 3," he said.

He said the search would be continued independently, meaning it would be carried out during regular training rounds in Jayapura as well as in cooperation with related institutions located near the area where the helicopter reportedly went missing.

The missing helicopter was carrying two pilots and two other crewmembers on a regular training mission when contact was lost.

The aircraft reportedly took off from Sentani military airfield near Jayapura at 8.35 a.m. on route to Benawa hamlet some 150 kilometers southeast of Jayapura.

Traffic control officers in Sentani lost contact with the helicopter at 10 a.m., prompting senior Air Force officers in the city to order a search.

The helicopter's disappearance came three months after an Air Force aircraft went down at Jabung Hill, Malang, East Java, at the end of July. The Bronco OV-10 was totally destroyed and both pilot and co-pilot died in the accident.

The series of military aviation accidents has been blamed on the age of the fleet, but Sagom Tamboen, an Air Force spokesman, said the Twin Pack helicopter was in good shape when it set out on the ill-fated flight.