Henra;
One thing that puzzles me in the drawn flight paths is the direction.
Looking at the direction of the sunlight in the pics of the crash site I conclude the direction of travel must have been roughly S -> N, maybe SE -> NW.
In the background of the pics you see another mountain's peak. So the W -> E travel hitting the last mountain range prior to Cijeruk does not really seem to match. Anyone else share my scepticism ?
Yes. Still puzzling in Google Earth. I had suggested a site early in the thread which would have had the aircraft traveling south-eastbound up the blind canyon but I removed it as newer information became available. However...
First, the "exact" location given in the map posted on Sergei Dolya's images from yesterday, can't possibly be the site because 6.42.36.78S, 106.44.41.20E is on the east side of a ridge in a relatively flat area.
First, it would mean that the aircraft was on the east side of Mt. Salak, on a west-bound course. The ridge in the foreground as well as the ridge in the background roughly fit the profiles seen in the photographs however, but so do the profiles in the approach east-bound from the west, to the saddle and ridge.
Next, yesterday's video from the helicopter helps a bit but the quality of the images is poor. That said, I am assuming that the ridge in the photograph of the accident site is the one to the west of the mountain face seen in the same photograph. It is a bit confusing still...
The inaccuracies and confusion as to the actual site I think boil down to data inaccuracies emanating from in-situ / base communications, the circumstances surrounding the accident and difficulty in accessing the crash site - the confusion surrounding the original layout of the accident site hasn't been resolved either but I think we can safely assume that there is only one site and that is the one in the available photographs and that "large parts" are the vertical and possibly one horizontal stabilizer.
In Google Earth there is a saddle between two peaks, with a peak in the background that can be flown up a valley on roughly a 070 - 075(M) course; (one consideration is that they were on a course to intercept R209 while they were "touring" Mt. Salak), and the crash location given, (in dms, 6.42.36.78S, 106.44.41.20E ) is too far to the NE and is actually over a ridge, on the east side. The site at 6°42'39.62"S, 106°44'2.15"E looks more plausible, and much more like the images we've seen from the helicopter and the various still photographs.
The red line overhead is one of the approach airways for Halim Airport - R206, which is the 195R, HLM.
One thing I've puzzled over as well is, the mountain on the other side of the saddle - the one we see in all images. Had they cleared the saddle, would it have been a CFIT on that mountain instead? Depending upon how fast the aircraft was travelling, (we can assume between 200kts and 250kts), even with a steep bank angle, the room available for the slow turning rate may not be sufficient to have cleared that mountain either. It's less than 0.5NM from the saddle to the mountain in the distance, (if this view and location is correct!).
