Second minor aircraft collision in a month at Jakarta airports

JAKARTA — Two Indonesian passenger planes have been involved in a minor collision at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta Airport, a second such incident in the capital in a month.

The two Lion Air aircraft clipped wings on Sunday (May 1) night as they were about to take off, the Indonesian airliner said on Tuesday, confirming the latest accident in the country’s beleaguered aviation sector.

“There was only minor damage to the planes and no one was injured,” said Mr Edward Sirait, general affairs director at Lion Air.

On April 4, a plane operated by Batik Air — part of the Lion Group along with Lion Air — was taking off from Jakarta’s Halim Perdanakusuma airport when it clipped a TransNusa plane being towed across the runway.

Part of one of the aircraft’s wings was damaged and a fire broke out, but all on board were evacuated safely and there were no injuries in last month’s incident.

Indonesia’s air travel industry is booming, with the number of domestic passengers growing significantly over the past decade, but it has a dismal air safety record and reputation for chaotic regulation.

In 2013, a Lion Air jet with a rookie pilot at the controls undershot the runway and crashed into the sea in Bali, splitting the plane in two. Several people were injured in the crash, although no one was killed.

Lion Air explained that the two aircraft on Sunday night — one heading to Denpasar and the other going to Manado — brushed against each other as the two aircraft, after backing from the apron, were moving towards the taxiway to take off on the runway.

The airline claimed that its pilots had followed the instructions of the Air Traffic Control (ATC) when taxiing for take off before the collision.

Indonesia’s aviation navigation controller, AirNav Indonesia, said that “everything went well between the pilots and ATC”.

The Boeing 737-900 ER asked for a pushback from parking stand A 33, and ground ATC gave clearance, AirNav Indonesia’s public relations officer Yohanes Sirait said, citing records of communication.

“A minute later, the Airbus 330 asked for pushback from K 13 and ATC also gave clearance for pushback,” he said.

In response to the Boeing aircraft’s request for taxi clearance, ATC asked the pilot whether it was possible to taxi at the apron as there was much traffic on the ground. The pilot confirmed that it was possible.

Five minutes after the Boeing was approved to taxi, its pilot asked for permission to return to apron because it felt that there was brushing in the area of the right wing tip, according to Mr Yohanes.

The latest incidents involving air traffic control and safety comes as Jakarta is seeking to reclaim control of the Flight Information Region (FIR) above the Riau Islands from Singapore.

The FIR around Riau has hitherto been controlled by Singaporean air traffic controllers. Singapore has said that the FIR is not an issue of sovereignty, but of safety and efficiency of commercial air traffic. AGENCIES