Military Plane Crash Draws Attention to Lack of ‘Pioneer’ Flights
By Jakarta Globe on 06:28 pm Jul 02, 2015
Category Featured, Front Page, News
Tags: airplane accident, Indonesia airplane accident, Indonesian Military TNI, Medan Hercules crash
Jakarta. Indonesia’s unaddressed need for flights serving the outlying regions has come into question in the aftermath of the military plane crash in Medan, North Sumatra, which killed at least 122 people.
That the Hercules C-130 military transport plane was carrying dozens of civilian passengers aside from military personnel when the accident took place on Tuesday has triggered allegations that the military was using its aircraft for commercial transportation of civilians — activities that the Defense Minister says have been going on for years but the Air Force chief says is forbidden.
The ill-fated flight’s manifest says the plane was carrying 12 crew members and 110 passengers, most of whom were believed to be Indonesian Military (TNI) personnel and their families.
Allegations have arisen, however, that civilians had also booked passage and were on board.
“No [military] aircraft is permitted to transport civilians,” Air Marshal Agus Supriatna said on Tuesday, “unless there are orders from above, for instance for evacuation in the case of a disaster. Family members [of military personnel] are an exception.”
He stressed that the “commercialization” of military flights was strictly prohibited.
“If that was the case [in the Medan accident], we’ll fire the commander,” Agus said. “This is definitely one aspect of our ongoing investigation.”
But Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu, a former Army chief of staff, acknowledged that transporting civilians on military aircraft was a common practice.
“The practice has existed for a long time,” he said in Jakarta. “If [civilians] wanted to go along, they were welcome to. It’s been like that for ages, with no problems before.”
Vice President Jusuf Kalla also has justified the use of military planes for the commercial transportation of civilians.
Kalla told reporters in Jakarta on Wednesday that the paid passage of civilians on board military aircraft was a valuable contribution by the TNI to remote communities.
“The military has civilian missions as well [as military ones],” he said, adding that the C-130 Hercules transporter that crashed on Tuesday shortly after takeoff was “not on any special mission.”
“So rather than fly empty to Natuna, it took on passengers. I see that as a contribution by the TNI to people in difficult circumstances,” Kalla said.
On ‘pioneer’ flights
The 51-year-old plane was officially on a mission carrying supplies to a naval base in the Natuna Islands, a remote island chain at the southwestern tip of the South China Sea.
To the Regional Representatives Council, or DPD, the accident has shed light on Indonesia’s unaddressed need for flights to many of its far-flung regions, often referred to as “pioneer flights,” which have been largely abandoned by commercial airlines.
State-owned Merpati Nusantara Airlines, which once served a number of non-profitable routes to remote areas, was forced to cease operations after struggling to pay Rp 7.6 trillion ($570 million) in debt and keep up with operational costs.
The military’s Hercules fleet are flying to remote regions, although some have been grounded immediately following Tuesday’s plane crash.
“We hope the government will revamp pioneer flights, given that the state budget for such flights has been reduced,” the DPD’s Committee II, which oversees transportation and regional developments, said in a press statement on Thursday.
Parlindungan Purba, a member of the commission, said Natuna is among Indonesia’s remote regions that has few options for transportation.
“Hercules planes have been really helpful [in transporting] people to Natuna,” Parlindungan said.
“This [providing transport] is the kind of things that we need to develop again. Because lately, the government’s budget for pioneer flights has gotten smaller,” he added.
DPD, which has no legislative functions unlike the House of Representatives (DPR), says it will formally propose subsidies for pioneer flights to the government in order to reduce the use of military aircraft to serve civilian passengers.
“There needs to be cooperation with regional administrations, mainly to address problems with land acquisitions and to allow the construction of decent airports,” Committee II continues in the statement.
“There needs to be funding from the central government and district and municipal administrations. If we depend on regional administrations alone, they pay very little attention on [the need] for pioneer flights,” it adds.
Investigation
A member of the Air Force team tasked with investigating the cause of Tuesday’s accident said the plane may have suffered a technical problem.
“Based on a preliminary report we received after the Hercules plane crashed, the pilot had contacted [ground control], telling them the plane needed to return to Suwondo Air Force base in Medan. Such a request indicates that there was a problem with the plane,” Syofian said in Medan on Wednesday.
Previous media reports have said the pilot, Capt. Sandy Permana, had requested to return to the airport two minutes after takeoff, but never had the chance to explain why.
Syofian said four engines of the plane had been retrieved from the crash site, adding that the Hercules did not have a flight recorder, commonly referred to as the black box, which is usually elemental in investigations of accidents involving commercial airplanes.
“We’re examining the engines,” he said.
Air Marshall Agus denied allegations that the plane was overloaded when it crashed into a residential area on Jalan Djamin Ginting in Medan.
“The Hercules plane could carry as many as 130 passengers and a total of 135 tons of luggage. I need to assert that it didn’t crash because of a heavy load,” he said, adding that a Hercules plane would never be allowed to take off if it was overloaded.
Air Force spokesman First Marshall Dwi Badarmanto said the plane was carrying 122 people, including 12 crew members and 110 passengers.
Immediately after the crash and pending further investigation, Agus said half of the military’s Hercules fleet has been grounded.
He said planes produced in the same year as the ill-fated aircraft, in 1964, were now prohibited from flying. But newer models, including those produced in the 1970s, are still in use.
President Joko Widodo has promised that the government will seriously focus on modernizing the military’s equipment and weaponry.
He vowed to demolish aging equipment and called for the development of the country’s defense industry in order to reduce its reliance on foreign-made weapons and machinery.
The C-130 Hercules aircraft was produced by American aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin.
Lockheed said it was ready to support the Indonesian Air Force in investigating the crash, according to Bloomberg.
“We must be involved in the design stage, production, operations, exercises, maintenance and the demolition of our aging military equipment and weaponry,” Joko said during a speech in Depok, West Java, on Wednesday.
“Policies [to modernize Indonesia's weaponry] must be directed toward building our independence in defense industry.”
But Army Chief of Staff Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo, the president’s sole nominee for the new TNI commander, disagreed with grounding all aging military equipment.
“We are examining the airworthiness of all of our planes. If they’re allowed the fly, it’s because technically they’re considered airworthy. If not, they wouldn’t be allowed to take off,” Gatot said.
“If we have to stop using all of them, what would we use? We continuously fix up the the old ones, because we’re not a rich country,” he added.
Correction on death toll figure
The exact number of victims remains unclear as of Thursday.
On Wednesday, Dwi said search and rescue personnel had filled a total of 142 body bags, but the figure did necessarily reflect the number of fatalities.
He said only 91 bags contained the intact remains of victims, while 51 other bags contained body parts.
Still, all 122 people on board are believed to have been killed, while seven local residents were reported missing and feared dead in the accident as well, which may bring the death toll to 129.
The search for victims was called off on Thursday as all of their remains are believed to have been recovered, Agus said.
As of Thursday morning, the bodies of 51 identified victims had been flown to their respective hometowns for burial.
Agus said he was optimistic that the forensics team at Adam Malik Hospital would be able to identify the remaining victims, so there would be no need for a mass burial.
He added the Air Force would compensate residents whose homes were destroyed by the crash.
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