Indonesian Aviation
 

G'day everyone,

I thought it we be good to have a thread where we can all make comments on Indonesian aviation without always focusing on a single operator.

One of the issues that I see impacting on safety is the inability of operators to build hangars on airports such as Halim which is in reality a TNI-AU air base. Pondok Cabe would be ideal but this seems to be a Pelita and Government only airfield. Some AMOs have secretly set up facilities working inside some of the military hangars at Pondok Cabe but news travels fast and Pelita had them kicked off the airfield.

Some operators at Halim that weren't close to the Soeharto family in the old days still don't have their own hangars after 30 yrs and work on aircraft in a shelter which doesn't provide protection from the weather.

Perhaps it's time that Jakarta had a general aviation / training airfield where operators and AMOs were allowed to develop their own hangars and other permanent facilities ?

ps Good to see some DGCA guys on the forum now :ok:

What about Budiarto in West Jakarta? ANI are based there. Pondok Cabe is a bit too small I think and in a densely populated area. Budiarto being on the fringes of the metropolis would seem to lend itself quite well to maintenance operations.

There seems to be an increasing number of Indonesian operators, both large and small, opening their doors to foreign pilots. Has there been a change in the DGAC's policy towards allowing foreign expat pilots to work in Indonesia?

Merpati Accident
 

Merpati F100 at Kupang on Dec 2nd 2009, landed without left main gear.

Where is Merpati at with the MA60's and the reported 6 ATR's they were going to lease? They have an increasingly aging fleet. CN-235 PK-MNC is grounded in Medan and parts seem to be pulled off now and then to keep PK-MNE flying.

I know its a political hot-potato of sorts but given they are such a basket case it really would make sense to start afresh with a 'regional carrier' being established within the Garuda Indonesia Group:

Garuda Indonesia - Domestic and International full-service
Citilink - National and International LCC
New Merpati - Domestic turbo-props

That would put the Garuda Group on a good footing to combat the increasing competition from Lion Air.

This article was sent to me by a friend about a relatively minor incident involving a Susi Air C208 having blown a tyre on landing at Medan and closing the airport for 40 minutes.

Susi Air Kempes Ban Saat Landing di Polonia

Seems like even brand new aircraft can have problems with wheels and undercarriages. :E

Yes training wheels flat tyres happen from time to time, have experienced one myself.

Batavia popped a noswheel tyre on an A320 on landing in Medan about a week or so prior and caused flights to divert.

9 Hurt in Bali After Smoking Jet Engine Sends Passengers Scrambling

National aviation officials plan to evaluate Batavia Air personnel after an incident at Denpasar’s airport on Thursday in which nine passengers were hurt on one of the carrier’s jet when smoke from the engine caused a panic.

Herry Bhakti Singayuda, director general of civil aviation at the Transportation Ministry, said the cabin crew of the aircraft should have been able to calm passengers who were frightened after seeing smoke emanating from the rear engine of the plane and rushed to exit through the emergency doors.

“We will evaluate why the crew could not stop the passengers from panicking,” Herry said.

Eddy Haryanto, a spokesman for Batavia Air, explained that the pilot had just turned on the engines and the smoke was part of the ignition process.

“It’s a normal procedure,” he said, “but the passengers panicked and tried to save themselves.”

“There was no fire,” he said, adding that all the passengers had been evacuated and several of them were rushed to the hospital for treatment.

Heru Legowo, general manager of PT Angkasa Pura I, which manages Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar, said the nine injured passengers were being treated at Sanglah Hospital. Three of them are suffering from serious injuries.

Sonny Boy Saerang, one of the passengers, said he thought the plane was on fire.

“We were hysterical,” he said, “and we were tired and upset because we had been abandoned by the airline during the overnight delay.”

The Boeing 737-400 had been carrying 148 passengers from Surabaya, East Java to Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara. However, it was forced to stop in Bali on Wednesday night because an emergency forced Kupang’s El Tari Airport to close.

Sonny said the passengers had to wait at the airport because there was no overnight compensation from the carrier.

On Wednesday night, a Merpati Airlines’ Fokker 100 had to perform an emergency landing at Kupang airport after its left wheel failed to release.

Sukandi, public relations officer for Merpati, said the pilot, Capt. Budi Kartawijaya, decided to delay landing and requested the airport prepare ambulances and fire trucks for an emergency landing scenario.

Fortunately, the pilot managed to land the aircraft smoothly on only two wheels and all passengers and crew were unharmed.

“Everybody was safe and sound,” Sukandi said.

The plane, carrying 88 passengers, was en route from Makassar to Kupang.

JA Barata, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT), said that a team of three had been sent to Kupang to investigate the El Tari case.

“This is a serious incident,” he said, adding that as of Thursday afternoon, El Tari was still closed.

However, Barata said, KNKT would only monitor the Batavia Air incident as it was not considered as serious.

9 Hurt in Bali After Smoking Jet Engine Sends Passengers Scrambling - The Jakarta Globe

I think there's some issues there also with building new facilities. When ANI moved to the larger hangar they spent a fortune refurbishing the hangar and moving the DGCA calibration office to a smaller hangar. Given all this expense and the large area of vacant land there why weren't they allowed just to build another hangar ? The biggest problem with Curug is getting there by road , I have done trips where it's taken 3 hrs one way.

I was involved in getting a couple of turboprop freighters in here a few months ago and we were allowed to employ a foreign check and training captain for a maximum of 12 months and that was it.

I 'heard' that if an operator can't find sufficient numbers of pilots and they can find expat pilots willing to work for local pay they can do so but this sort of arrangement would be subject to review and local pilot supply. I'm sure others who have actually done it can provide better insight (there's a few expat jet pilots on pprune who work in Indonesia)

'Churcak' do you know what the policy on expat pilots is ?

Which really is a shame because like you say expansion at Halim with TNI AU is pretty much a no-go. Also a ramp-up of operations there from an urban 'planning' (yes I said it in reference to Jakarta!) point of view wouldn't be ideal. Just seems that Curug would be ideal for an aviation business hub.

I think it took about an hour and half to get to Ciputat in afternoon traffic. But I can certainly see it taking 3 hours. That is the problem with Jakarta though and its good to see SBY again floating the idea of moving the administrative capital away from the Big Durian.

Don't suppose you know what is happening with Kuala Namu? I've still yet to positively sight it from the air although I have seen some pictures on the net.

Aseanaero et al,
Hangars? That's literally a nationwide problem that's largely been swept under the carpet...
There's a Pelita Hangar at Palembang that's not being used if anyone wants it! *grin*

However, the problem seems to be the legality of land ownership and land lease within airports. It's often not clear who owns the land and who can approve such a lease or what have you.

Budiarto's main problem is... road access... and it's proximity to CGK... and the flying schools have problems there with regards to pedantic legality of VFR flying (plus the flight permits, which is again, a factor against General Aviation here).

The sad thing is, general aviation is so underappreciated here. Guys quickly forget that to get to the big planes, you gotta start from flying little planes, even if only for 200hrs or so.

Choke G/A and you choke your pilot supply.

Massey058,
Merpati? It's not just a hot potato... many wouldn't touch it even with a bargepole!
Kualanamu? Lots of small little nightmares surrounding legality of land sales, the highway access tenders, etc etc etc.

GBV,
The DGAC needs to look at pax behaviour. When panicked, they get violent (I mean very violent) with the cabin crew. I know one FA who has a POB or another blunt object whenever addressing panicked or unruly pax. Several FAs I know from at least 2 carriers have been punched by panicked pax trying to evac when an evac isn't required.

The pax's complaint of being "abandoned" by the airline should be looked into. Pax demands for compensations have been going on a ridiculous slide into stupidity, even though the various airlines' past sins are sometimes to blame.

One FA gave me a typed letter once with only dotted lines to fill in for the Captain's name, the purser's name, and the length of the delay. The date and flight number was typed in. The letter basically stated if the delay exceeds X minutes, they would force the crew to agree to compensating the passengers, regardless of the reason (weather or an airport closure).

Several FAs have cited possibility of a new type of organized crime set to blackmail airlines for the most ridiculous things, from delays, to damaged bags (with the evidence nicely removed by the pax and the claim letter comes 1 month after the flight). It is a worrying trend that many airline management have largely turned a blind eye. Crew are beginning to feel like their licenses are "blame bait" once more.

Churchak,
Oh boy, don't get me started on that one. Common sense doesn't exist on some of them. They blame their inability to gain employment on more progressive airlines (in terms of pay and human factors) on a conspiracy. Blame someone else is not unique to Indonesian aviation... it's basically the negative side of modern Indonesian society.

Indeed. We can't change it overnight. Rock the boat too much and the scumbags will win. All we can do is fight it systematically, progressively, with cool, and increments that make common sense, and slowly eliminate the ones who prefer to stick their heads in the sand.

PK-KAR

Never a truer word spoken!

Guess even 2011 might look optimistic, the disaster that is Polonia will just have to struggle on.

On that note a Garuda 737-400 had a rejected take-off yesterday at close to V1, seems it may have been an engine problem. Tyres were blown as is sometimes the case in a high-speed abort and there was a small grass fire off the side of the runway. Tower were very slow to react and didn't seem to understand what other pilots were saying when they said there was a fire. Local pilots were quite embarrassed by the poor response.

The runway was subsequently closed for about 5 hours until the aircraft was finally towed off onto the taxiway. Apparently a number of flights who were sitting in the hold then began declaring 10 minutes fuel remaining, one even saying 6 minutes. I would sincerely hope that was until they had to divert to an alternate!

Have to say though despite the poor initial response by tower, control handled the aftermath quite well. More often than not you are left perplexed by what is going on in the terminal area but under a lot of pressure they actually made it work.

Well done to the Garuda guys as well, a high-speed abort is a high-pressure situation and I imagine Polonia's runway seems awfully short when you need to stop a jet in a hurry.

I have a couple of first-time in Indo foreign visitors here today and we are having problems with security clearances , they are getting furstrated to no avail , I told them to just relax , it will all work out in the end.

This is one of the miracles of Indonesia , just when everything is spiralling out of control and disaster seems imminent it all clicks at once and the job gets done.

W-T-I
 

Let's look at a more acute problem... rotorheads... we're so short of them it's ridiculous! Why? Again, it falls under G/A but operates under 135... A wonderful offer for all paid courses etc... but very few takers... reason? "We don't have girls on the rotary..." *despite the contrary for that company!* (you just can't win sometimes!)

Oh that threw mayhem... they had inadequate removal facilities... I mean come on... 5 hrs?
6 - 10 mins of fuel remaining? No prizes for guessing which carrier was telling the truth and which were lying about it... Hehehehe

One cannot help but wonder how long can this last until something breaks again!

---

You know the saying... Whiskey Tango India... Welcome To Indonesia...

WTI mate... WTI! Hahahaha!
Again... how many times does this have to happen before what's imminent happens and the black sheep gets hunted again?

Miracle starts with the letter C in Indonesia. :E

or CFIT...:}

Be advised that an airside visitors pass for a foreigner to the GA and charter parking area of Halim now requires an air force security clearance which will take between 7 and 10 days to process.

It was probably always a requirement but it was never enforced , now it is.

Anyone know what has triggered this ?

Are dukuns (witch doctors) a tax deductible operating expense ?

Which doctors ?:rolleyes:

Black Market Parts
 

One of the positive things I have seen is the reduction (about a 90% drop ion the last 5 yrs) in black market second hand 'ketok magic' parts which are stolen , have modified serial numbers or glued on data plates.

On the other side I have a lot of new surplus parts and hardware which I can't sell locally now as they don't have certification certificates which most of the operators need now , they end up being sold in bulk packages ... to the USA .. where they are recertified and live happily ever after.

Seriously, the problem with Indonesia ( which includes aviation ) can be described in two words:

D I S C I P L I N E

M A I N T E N A N C E

The lack of that is.....


Once these are under control the rest will follow automatically but I doubt that my children's children will witness this in their lifetime.