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| Southeast Asia |
| Indonesia Plane Crash Caused by Engine Failure, Air Force Chief Says |
| 2015-07-03 |
| [NYTIMES] An engine malfunction was the reason an Indonesian military aircraft crashed into an urban neighborhood, the chief of the air force said on Thursday, offering the first official explanation of the disaster two days ago. Air Marshal Agus Supriatna told news hounds in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra Province, that one of the four propellers on the aircraft, an American-built C-130 Hercules transport, was not functioning, causing it to crash about two minutes after takeoff on Tuesday from Soewondo Air Force Base in the city. All 122 people on the plane were killed, as well as at least 21 people on the ground. "The pilot had asked to return to base, and that was an indication there was something wrong with the plane," Marshal Agus said. "There was a malfunction. One of the propellers wasn't working; that's why the plane went down so fast." A woman who witnessed the crash said she noticed that at least two of the C-130's four propellers were not turning when the aircraft smashed into a gated compound of shops with living spaces above them. The witness said that in the seconds before the crash she saw thick smoke coming from one of the plane's wings. Two should have been adequate to keep it in the air from what I understand. If they were down to one then they were toast. There has been speculation that the aircraft, which was transporting Indonesian military personnel and their dependents between military bases, may have been overloaded with passengers. It was bound for stops in the Riau Islands, the Natuna Islands and Indonesian Borneo when it took off on Tuesday. The doomed aircraft missed striking a dense cluster of lower-class dwellings and shops by a few yards; instead it hit the compound, which has some open space as well as a number of popular traditional Indonesian massage parlors. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 And if you had a pitch control problem and a locked prop transmission, the result would have been engine failure and possibly enough asymmetric power to cause a stall. |
| Posted by: Bill Clinton 2015-07-03 12:21 |
| #3 If both dead engines were on the same side of the A/C, the lift and yaw issues, esp. at high power settings and low airspeed, could result in control problems as serious as a "rollover." |
| Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 2015-07-03 11:02 |
| #2 Flying with two engines out is often possible, though it would be easier if they were on opposite side (were they?) Losing two on take-off of a loaded aircraft makes for a much harder task. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2015-07-03 08:27 |
| #1 The same as the Taiwan air crash. Pilot lost one engine and turned off the wrong engine, resulting in two lost engines. In Taiwan this left them with zero engines, but here they've got two remaining so they should have been OK. Guess is that pilot dumb enough to turn off the wrong engine probably doesn't know how to trim the aircraft for flight with two engines out. |
| Posted by: Thraling Hupoluns2819 2015-07-03 02:08 |