Bandung Air Show: FFA AS/SA 202/18A3 Bravo, PK-AFL, Indonesian Aerosport Federation, Husein Sastranegara Airport, Bandung, Indonesia

A training aircraft crashed on Saturday while doing an aerobatic maneuver during the Bandung Air Show 2012 at Husein Sastranegara Airport in Bandung, killing the pilot and co-pilot.
 

The plane crashed at about 11:30 a.m. and exploded, with thick black smoke seen billowing from the crash location.

The plane, a Bravo 202 aircraft, with two side-by-side seats in the cockpit, was reportedly flying low before the crash.

It reportedly performed maneuvers five times before crashing into an Indonesian Air Force logistics warehouse near Husein Sastranegara Airport, which was closed for an hour for evacuation purposes.

The pilot and the co-pilot were both killed in the crash, and their remains have been taken to Bandung's Hasan Sadikin Hospital.

The pilot was Air Vice Marshall (ret.) Nurman Lubis, an opthalmologist and the owner of eye hospital Bandung Eye Center, according to one of his relatives, as quoted by bisnis.com. He was survived by his wife and three children.

The co-pilot was identified as Col. (ret.) Tonny Haryono.

The commander of the Air Force base at Husein, Col. Umar Sugeng, said both men were members of the Indonesian Aero Sport Federation (FASI) and had regularly flown the ill-fated aircraft on weekend.

“A rescue team arrived at the location two minutes after the crash... But the crew members were already dead,” Umar said, as quoted by Antara news agency.

“A team from the Indonesian Air Force and FASI will investigate the cause of the plane crash. We offer our condolences for this incident,” he added.

The plane, whose wreck has been removed to the nearby manufacturing site of state aircraft maker Dirgantara Indonesia, is reportedly owned by FASI. The Bravo 202, according to Umar, originally belonged to the Air Force before it was donated to FASI.

The Bandung Air Show 2012 opened on Thursday and is supposed to take place until Sunday to commemorate Bandung’s 202nd anniversary.

Umar said the remaining aerobatics sessions of the air show would be canceled following the incident.

“But the static exhibition is still running,” Umar said, as quoted by Antara news agency.

This is not the first plane crash in Bandung Air Show. The first one, involving a Cessna, crashed in the 2010 event. The pilot, Alexander Supeli, survived, but was critically injured.