Garuda plane forced to make emergency landing in Bali
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.