145 Batavia Air Passengers Safe After In-Flight Engine Failure
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In the latest incident to hit the lcoal aviation industry, a Batavia Air Boeing 737-300 was forced to make an emergency landing after an engine failed in the skies above Java on Monday night.
It is the second passenger aircraft to have experienced in-flight mechanical trouble in less than a week.
Edi Haryono, a spokesman for Batavia Air, said the plane, carrying 145 passengers, was flying from Jakarta to Surabaya, East Java Province, when its left engine failed, forcing the aircraft to land at Ahmad Yani Airport in Semarang, Central Java Province.
“The pilot decided to land after an hour of flying around to empty the fuel tank,” Edi said.
“None of the 145 passengers were hurt,” he said, adding that the plane had been properly checked before taking off.
Dudi Sudibyo, the editor of aviation magazine Angkasa, described the incident as serious.
“This is no minor incident,” he said. “If they are forced to land there is something badly wrong. And if it is the engine then that is a maintenance issue and there should be an investigation.”
Dudi said the National Transportation Safety Committee, or KNKT, should investigate all major incidents, including one last week in which a Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-200 was diverted to Hang Nadim International Airport in Batam, Riau Islands Province, after an engine failed during its flight from Tanjung Pinang, Riau Province, to Jakarta.
KNKT spokesman JA Barata said that the committee would not investigate the matter. “The KNKT will keep monitoring as the airline conducts its own internal investigation,” he said, adding that the committee could only take action following a direct order from the Transportation Ministry or if the airlines’ internal investigations yielded unfavorable results.
Dudi, however, said the ministry’s oversight of the industry was poor.
None of this is likely to help Indonesia’s effort to regain access for its airlines to the European Union, which has refused to lift its ban on Indonesian flights for at least the next three months.
Herry Bhakti, the ministry’s director general of civil aviation, said on Monday that the EU would wait until June to discuss the ban because Indonesia had yet to carry out several important recommendations.
The ban, a source of embarrassment to the government, was based on 69 recommendations — including the improvement of oversight — from the International Civil Aviation Organization’s audit of local airlines in 2004-07.
In late February, a Lion Air jet was forced to land without its front landing gear. The KNKT has reportedly completed its investigation into the near disaster, but the ministry has not yet released the report.
