Crash raises more concerns about Indonesia air safety

Indonesia’s poor aviation safety record came under renewed scrutiny Wednesday as officials said at least 98 people died in the crash of a military plane that was carrying troops and their families.

Officials had initially said at least 68 people were killed after the plane caught fire and nose-dived into a residential neighborhood early Wednesday.

Survivors said they heard at least two loud explosions and felt the C-130 Hercules wobbling from left to right as it plummeted to the ground. The transporter slammed into a row of houses and then skidded into a rice paddy, its fuselage shattered.

“People were screaming hysterically as the plane was going down,” Pvt. Saputra, who uses one name, told the news website Detik.com. “We were being thrown around all over the place. Then it just blew up and I found myself lying in a field, 20 yards from the wreckage. I couldn’t stand up and some villagers came to help me.”

Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most populous nation, has been hit by a string of airline crashes, both commercial and military, putting it under international pressure to improve maintenance and safety regulations. Its air force fleet, long underfunded and handicapped by a recently lifted U.S. ban on military sales, has been especially hard hit.

On Wednesday, black smoke billowed as soldiers carried the dead and injured through brilliant green paddies to waiting ambulances.

Military spokesman Sagom Tamboen said the plane, built in 1980, was on a routine flight from the capital, Jakarta, and went down before it could reach its destination, an air force base in East Java province.

It was not clear what caused the crash. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former army general, promised a thorough investigation.

The plane, carrying at least 110 passengers and crew members, went down in Geplak village, 325 miles east of Jakarta.

The dead included two on the ground, and 15 people were injured, said Bambang Samudro, chief of the military air base in Magetan.--

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A history of accidents

Some of the deadliest military and commercial airline crashes in Indonesia in recent years:

May 2 A C-130 Hercules military plane carrying troops and families crashes in East Java province, killing 98.

April 6 A Fokker 27 military aircraft slams into an airport hangar in the city of Bandung on Java island, killing 24.

March 7, 2007 A Boeing 737 jet of national airline Garuda overshoots a runway and erupts in flames in Yogyakarta on Java, killing 21.

Jan. 1, 2007 A plane with budget airline Adam Air plunges into the sea in central Indonesia in stormy weather, killing all 102 aboard.

Sept. 5, 2005 A Mandala Airlines Boeing 737 crashes shortly after takeoff from Medan on the island of Sumatra, killing at least 145.

Source: Associated Press