The operator of the plane that crashed in North Sumatra last week, killing all 18 on board, has suspended all flights on the route in question, officials announced on Monday.
However, another operator that experienced a similar fatal crash in Papua just weeks earlier is now serving that route — using the same type of plane involved in the Papua incident.
Basri, head of the aviation department in Southeast Aceh district, said that Nusantara Buana Air had temporarily halted all flights from Medan to Kutacane in Southeast Aceh.
He added that the suspension, imposed since an NBA CASA 212 turboprop plane crashed last Thursday in mountainous terrain in North Sumatra’s Langkat district, would be in place indefinitely. “All that’s certain right now is that the NBA management has not been able to give an exact date for when it will resume flights to and from Southeast Aceh,” he said.
Since the accident, the route has been served by Susi Air, operating a Cessna 208 Grand Caravan turboprop. An identical Susi Air plane crashed in similar weather conditions in mountainous terrain in Papua on Sept. 9, killing the pilot and co-pilot. No passengers were on board in that incident.
Johan, a Susi Air ticketing official at the airline’s Banda Aceh branch, confirmed that the operator was using a Cessna 208 for the Medan-Kutacane route. He added Susi Air had also been using the same type of plane for flights from Medan to Aceh’s Simeulue and Nagan Raya districts.
However, Herry Bhakti, the director general of aviation at the Transportation Ministry, said he was unaware that Susi Air had taken over the route.
“I don’t know about that, we’ll have to see later,” he said. He also dismissed safety concerns about Susi Air operating the route, saying there was no link between the crash in Aceh and that in Papua.
Separately, the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) said it had recovered the flight data recorder from the wreckage of the NBA flight and was bringing it to the committee’s laboratory in Jakarta to try to determine the cause of the crash, which to date has been blamed on bad weather.
Tatang S. Kurniadi, the head of the KNKT, said recovering the data from the black box would not take long, but drawing a conclusion from the findings could take up to a year.
“Downloading the data will take a month or two at the most, but to piece it together to reach a conclusion could drag the process to 12 months,” he said. “With the right resources, we might be able to do it in six or seven months.”
The bodies of 10 of the 18 people killed in the crash were returned to their families in Southeast Aceh on Monday and buried the same day. The other victims were buried over the weekend.
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