Rescue team yet to find missing soldiers
Rescue team yet to find missing soldiers
Nani Farida and Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post,
Banda Aceh/Surabaya
More than 24 hours after eight elite soldiers fell from a
helicopter during a stunt rehearsal in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam
on Saturday, the search and rescue (SAR) team has discovered only
a helmet and wallet believed to belong to one of the missing
troops.
"We began the search at 6 a.m. with the deployment of 40
marines and police Mobile Brigade personnel, but we have yet to
find them," Aceh military spokesman Lt. Col. Ahmad Yani Basuki
said on Sunday.
The eight Special Forces (Kopassus) soldiers were declared
missing after falling from a helicopter into the water off
Lhokseumawe, North Aceh, on Saturday. They were conducting a
final rehearsal for a stunt marking the 58th anniversary of the
Indonesian Military (TNI) when disaster struck.
The troops fell into the sea after the harness they were
suspended from was cut for safety reasons after the helicopter
became unstable in high wind. They are feared dead as they were
tied to one another and fell some 500 feet to 600 feet into the
sea.
The eight have been identified as Second Sgt. Maksum, Second
Pvt. Nainggolan, Chief Pvt. Sigit, Chief Pvt. Avianto, First Sgt.
Slamet Budiono, Chief Pvt. Choirul Anam, Chief Pvt. M. Dodi
Suhendro and Chief Pvt. Sugiono. They are members of the Kopassus
antiterror unit.
A Kopassus officer said the incident was the worst the unit
had ever experienced in terms of loss of life.
The incident marred the TNI's anniversary celebrations in Aceh
on Sunday. None of the traditional attractions were staged during
the celebration. Government and military offices lowered the
national flag to half-staff.
Aceh martial law administrator Maj. Gen. Endang Suwarya voiced
his sense of loss over the accident. "We are in mourning. All the
exercises followed the correct procedures. It was an accident,"
Endang said.
Meanwhile in Surabaya, Kopassus Commander Maj. Gen. Sriyanto
M. stated that the decision to cut the harness, which led to the
fatal accident, was in line with the procedures. However,
military headquarters had sent a team to investigate the
accident.
"It (the cutting of the harness) followed the procedures. If
there had been enough time, the soldiers would have cut the
harness themselves," he told reporters after attending the
Surabaya celebration marking the TNI anniversary.
He denied speculation that the TNI was more interested in
saving the helicopter than the soldiers.
Although Sriyanto did not blame the decision to cut the
harness as the cause of the accident, he said the Army would
investigate the incident.
The investigation would determine whether the decision to cut
the harness was correct, he added.
Sriyanto acknowledged that the elite soldiers did not carry
normal life-saving equipment, such as life-vests.
He said the stunt being performed -- the STABO maneuver --
greatly depended on the weather conditions, the pilot and the
aircraft.
He assumed that the eight soldiers had died because they could
not swim as they had been tied to one another.
His fellow TNI leaders also expressed their regret over the
accident.
Lt. Gen. Djamari Chaniago, TNI chief of general affairs, said
that soldiers nationwide wanted to commemorate the TNI's
anniversary, but "in an operations area, such as Aceh, crushing
the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) should be the priority
rather than celebrating the anniversary with a lavish ceremony."
TNI spokesman Maj. Gen. Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin said that TNI
Headquarters had sent a team to investigate the accident. The
team was led by Maj. Gen. Dadi Susanto, an intelligence assistant
to the TNI's chief of general affairs. Dadi's team would conduct
a parallel investigation with that being conducted by the Army
team.
To maintain the soldiers' morale, Kopassus Deputy Commander
Brig. Gen. Syaiful Rizal visited the province early on Sunday
morning.
More than 35,000 troops have been deployed to Aceh, with 2,000
are of these being from Kopassus.