Garuda plane forced to make emergency landing in Bali
Wahyoe Boediwardhana, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar
A packed Garuda plane traveling from Bali to Brisbane, Australia, was forced to make an emergency landing because of engine trouble, a senior airline official said on Wednesday.
The Airbus aircraft had been flying for approximately 90 minutes when the pilot detected a problem with the aircraft's left engine and quickly decided to return to Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali early on Wednesday.
"The engine trouble forced the pilot to return to Ngurah Rai airport," said Totok Hermawan, Garuda's Ngurah Rai station manager.
Totok said that as the aircraft was flying over the Indian Ocean, the pilot, Noor Wahyudi, detected a vibration in the plane's left engine and returned to Bali.
"That is standard procedure at our airline. If the pilot detects something that could put the safety of passengers at stake, he or she has to land the aircraft. At dawn on Wednesday, the pilot did the right thing, especially because the aircraft at that time had not reached the area categorized as the point of no return," said Totok.
The Airbus 330 aircraft with a seating capacity of 42 in business class and 252 in economy class was carrying 37 passengers in business class and 251 passengers in economy class.
None of the passengers were injured in the incident, which occurred a week after the Mandala plane crash in the North Sumatra capital Medan that killed 149 people, including some on the ground.
After landing in Bali, the passengers, mostly foreign tourists, were put up at the Sanur Beach Hotel and the Bali Gardenia Hotel. The passengers were scheduled to fly to Brisbane on Wednesday night aboard a different Garuda aircraft. The plane involved in the incident is being repaired at Ngurah Rai airport.
Separately, following the Mandala plane crash the management of Ngurah Rai airport has instituted random safety checks of aircraft landing at the airport, a gateway to the resort island of Bali.
The checks are being carried out by a team of 10 people led by airport official Djoko Warsito. The team checks the maintenance records of planes and inspects the cockpits. In the past three days, the team has checked nine commercial aircraft, all from domestic airlines, said Muhammad Fuschad, a station manager at Ngurah Rai.
The random checks are viewed by the airport as necessary following reports that several aircraft made emergency landings in the wake of the Mandala crash.
A day after the Mandala crash, a Garuda Indonesia airliner flying from Medan made an emergency landing at Sultan Syarif Kasim II Airport in Pekanbaru, Riau, due to a fuel indicator problem. In another incident the same day, a Mandala aircraft returned to Soekarno-Hatta Airport in Jakarta after 10 minutes in the air due to problems with the landing gear warning lamps. No one was injured in the incidents.
Separately, the director of Flight Feasibility Certification at the Ministry of Transportation, Iing Iskandar, confirmed on Wednesday a report that he would be immediately replaced.
However, he denied the replacement had anything to do with the series of recent airplane accidents.
"The replacement is a regular rotation," he said, as quoted by Antara news agency.
He said he was due to be moved after eight years as the director of Flight Feasibility Certification at the ministry.