Singapore Air Force helps to find missing helicopter

Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura

The Singapore Air Force has sent a special team and an unmanned aircraft to help Indonesia find a helicopter that went missing near Jayapura, Papua, on Oct. 12, a senior Indonesian Air Force officer says.

A 29-strong team from the Singapore Air Force began searching for the missing Twin Pack helicopter on Friday with a sophisticated device called Unmanned Air Vehicle, Jayapura Air Base chief Col. Anang Murdianto said.

The team worked with the aircraft equipped with an infrared video camera and operated from the control tower at the Sentani Air Base near Jayapura. The drone can fly seven hours non-stop.

"The aircraft will screen everything seen on the ground. At night the crew in Sentani air base will turn the infrared mode on, so that all the events on the ground can still be covered," Anang said. The Singapore team would be in Jayapura for one week, he said.

Parts of the Unmanned Air Vehicle were transported from Singapore on a Hercules cargo aircraft on Friday and reassembled in Jayapura.

"The aircraft is very small," said a local resident, Lala, when she saw it flying.

The helicopter went missing on its way to Benawa hamlet some 150 kilometers southeast of Sentani town near Jayapura after taking off from Sentani airforce base. On board were Capt. Beceau, co pilot First Lt. Satrio Utomo, mechanics Sgt Maj. Haryadi and Chief Sgt. Purnomo and a civilian passenger, Anis.

The Indonesian Air Force and local search and rescue earlier called off a search for the aircraft last week.

The went missing three months after another Air Force helicopter went down in the Jabung Hill area in Malang, East Java, at the end of July. The Bronco OV-10 was totally destroyed and both pilot and co-pilot died in the accident.

An aging fleet has often been blamed for the series of military aviation accidents during the past few years.

However, Air Force spokesman Sagom Tamboen said earlier the Twin Pack helicopter was in good condition when it set out on the Oct. 12 flight.