F-16 jet fighter skids off runway, no fatalities reported

Andi Hajramuni, The Jakarta Post/Makassar

One day after the Lion Air passenger jet accident that claimed the lives of 26 people, an Air Force F-16 jet fighter skidded off a runway on Wednesday at Hasanuddin Airport in Makassar.

No fatalities were reported in the incident.

Hasanuddin Air Base commander Col. Bambang Sulistio said that the incident occurred at 8:45 a.m. local time, when the weather condition had been considered fine.

Pilot Col. Siswono and co-pilot Capt. Satrio escaped the mishap unscathed, while the U.S.-manufactured jet fighter was slightly damaged, Bambang said.

He said that the jet fighter -- which flew from Iswahyudi Air Base in Madiun, East Java along with another two F-16s and one Sukhoi SU-27 -- was to have taken part in an air show at Hasanuddin air base, and an Air Force-sponsored military exercise covering the region of Tarakan in East Kalimantan and the strait of Makassar.

"The aircraft were expected to land in turn. The first jet fighter had landed safely but the F-16, which landed moments later, appeared to have trouble, and skidded off the runway, stopping about three meters from it," Bambang said, adding that the front landing gear had been damaged in the mishap.

He said that the group pulled off an impressive sky formation before landing at the air base.

Antara news agency reported that the jet carried a number of air-to-ground missiles.

Technicians towed the troubled jet fighter to the air base's hangar at about midday.

Bambang said that the cause of the mishap could not be announced immediately, pending the results of an investigation into the incident. "However, it may have been an overshoot caused by brake failure," he said.

He said that the jet fighter had been in good condition before leaving Iswahyudi air base.

In a strikingly similar incident on Tuesday, a passenger plane operated by Bouraq Airline, plying the Surabaya-Makassar-Palu route, skidded off a runway. No casualties were reported in the incident.

Also on Tuesday, a Lion Air passenger jet skidded off a slippery runway at Adi Sumarmo International Airport in Surakarta, Central Java, killing at least 26 people.