Bad weather blamed for plane crash
JAKARTA (JP): Bad weather is blamed for the crash of a Merpati Nusantara Airlines plane that killed all 12 people aboard in Palu, capital of Central Sulawesi, on Saturday.
The Fokker-27 from the East Kalimantan city of Balikpapan crashed into the 2,053 meter tall Mount Gawalise just minutes before it was scheduled to land in Palu's Mutiara airport at 12.16 p.m. local time.
"All 12 people on board were killed," Merpati spokesman Benny Achmad told The Jakarta Post by telephone yesterday. "The victims' remains will be returned to their respective families tomorrow (today)."
The badly charred bodies were air lifted by two helicopters and flown to a hospital in Palu where they were identified, he said.
Search and rescue workers sent to the crash site have also retrieved the "black box" flight data recorder.
Minister of Transportation Haryanto Danutirto, who went to the crash site to supervise the search and rescue operation in Palu, said yesterday that investigators have decided bad weather was the most likely cause of the accident.
"Preliminary investigations showed that the bad weather made the pilot lose orientation," Haryanto said as quoted by Antara.
Wrong course
Planes approaching Palu have to pass over two mountains and in the case of the ill-fate plane, it apparently took the wrong course, according to the investigators.
Merpati flight number MZ 5519, which was plying Balikpapan- Palu-Gorontalo-Manado, carried seven passengers, including a child, and five crew members.
The passengers were identified as Samsuriani, Maslan, Yauri Ruko, Jufri Adi Yahya, Husbey, Husni and Abdul Razak.
The crew were captain Albertus Budiono, 33, co-pilot Anton Hendrata, 23, stewardess Yanita Rahayu, steward Bambang Suryanto and mechanic Bramantio.
Yesterday, Budiono's wife who lives with her two year old child in West Jakarta's Kresek Indah housing complex turned down mourners saying she was still waiting for formal notice from Merpati.
Merpati operation director Amin Kahar said Budiono was a former pilot of the Indonesian Air Force who had 8,000 flight hours before he joined Merpati, a subsidiary of the flag carrier Garuda, in 1992.
Eyewitnesses near the site of accident told local authorities on Saturday the low-flying plane burst into a huge ball of fire when it hit the rough mountain terrain.
Villagers
Information from the villagers helped the search and rescue team find the site of the crash in less than 12 hours after the plane was reported missing by the control tower in Palu.
Central Sulawesi transport office chief, Mochammad Soeseba, said that a plane should have circled the Gawalise mountain range before approaching the runway near the entrance to Palu Bay in the west.
He said the Fokker took a short cut through the Gawalise mountain range to avoid the fog over Tanjungkarang. "But when the plane took the shortest way, it had already reduced its flying altitude from 8,500 feet to 6,000 feet - lower than the mountain. The unavoidable accident happened because the weather was so bad there."
Merpati currently has 14 Fokker-27 planes. The government had been planning to sell four of them to Myanmar.
Haryanto said that Saturday's crash means a change of plans, and only three will now be sold because one will replace the lost one.
The crash has prompted the government to require all passenger aircraft to install an additional safety device called global positioning system.
The system allows the control tower to monitor the plane's position by satellite, and also lets a pilot know if he is deviating from his flight path.
Haryanto said each passenger aircraft will install the device, which costs between US$3,000 and $400,000 each, by July 1.
The Palu accident reminded the public of a similar one in July last year in Sorong, Irian Jaya when a Fokker-28 crashed amid heavy rains, killing 41 of the 43 people on board.
In June 1993, a Merpati airliner crashed near Nabire, Irian Jaya on a cargo flight, killing one of three crew members.
In May this year, a woman passenger miraculously survived a light plane crash on a West Kalimantan mountain, in which the other nine people aboard the plane belonging to PT Dirgantara Air Service, died. (pan/par)