Mandala Airlines Flight 091

Mandala Airlines Flight 091

Location of Medan in Indonesia.(possible crash site)
Accident summary
Date	5 September 2005 (2005-09-05)
Type	Failed to takeoff
Site	Medan, Indonesia
Passengers	115
Crew	5
Fatalities	153 (including 49 on ground)
Survivors	16
Aircraft type	Boeing 737-230 Adv
Operator	Mandala Airlines
Tail number	PK-RIM

On 5 September 2005 (10:06 a.m. UTC+7), a Jakarta-bound Boeing 737-200 jetliner operated by Mandala Airlines crashed into a heavily-populated residential area seconds after taking off from Polonia International Airport in Medan, Indonesia. There were 143 fatalities.

Dozens of houses and cars were destroyed, and at least 49 people are reported to have perished on the ground. Later it was reported that at least 16 persons survived the accident, with 104 of those on board known to have died including three babies. Most of the survivors are thought to have been seated at the rear of the aircraft, though some have reportedly since died from their injuries. Most of the dead were Indonesian, although at least one Malaysian, Ti Teow Chuan from Sabah, was reported dead. Rizal Nurdin, the governor of North Sumatra at the time, and Raja Inal Siregar, the former governor, were among the dead.

The crash was the sixth major incident involving commercial airliners from August 1, 2005 to the date of the incident. The others were, in chronological order: Air France Flight 358; Tuninter Flight 1153 (an ATR-72 crash in the Mediterranean Sea); Helios Airways Flight 522 crash, killing 121 in Greece; West Caribbean Airways Flight 708's crash in Venezuela, killing 160; and TANS Peru Flight 204, killing 41 out of 100 people on board when it crashed in Peru.

Flight 091 has the second highest death toll of any aviation accident in Indonesia after Garuda Indonesia Flight 152 and the highest death toll of any accident involving a Boeing 737-200 ever.

Passengers

Survivors

A passenger named Rohadi Sitepu told Metro TV from hospital that he and five other people seated in the back of the plane in Row 20 had all survived. "There was the sound of an explosion in the front and there was fire and then the aircraft fell," he said. Rohadi said he escaped the blazing wreck by jumping through the torn fuselage and fleeing on foot as four large explosions erupted behind him.

Another survivor, Freddy Ismail, told Elshinta Radio from his hospital bed that the aircraft seemed to be experiencing mechanical difficulties after take-off. "After take-off, the noise of the engine suddenly became very loud and the aircraft began shaking intensely before it suddenly fell," he said.

Nationalities of the passengers and crew

Note: This doesn't include the thirty-nine casualties on ground.

Nationality	Passengers		Crew		Total
	Total	Killed	Total	Killed	Total	Killed
Indonesia	114	98	5	5	119	103
Malaysia	1	1	0	0	1	1
Total	115	99	5	5	120	104

Aircraft and airline

Main article: Mandala Airlines

A Boeing 737-200 similar to the one pictured here crashed in Medan with 100 out of 117 people on board killed in 2005

The aircraft, registration PK-RIM, was built in 1981 and formerly belonged to Lufthansa where it was registered as D-ABHK "Bayreuth". The aircraft had passed extensive safety tests in June and should have been airworthy until at least 2013.

Mandala Airlines was established in 1969 and is one of several low-cost airlines that serve the vast Indonesian archipelago. At the time of the accident it was 90-percent owned by a foundation set up by the Indonesian Army strategic reserve Kostrad (Komando Strategis Angkatan Darat). In 2006 it was acquired by Cardig International and Indigo Partners. It has 1,000 employees (at March 2007).[1]

Causes

Preliminary indications

Witness statements were contradictory, with some claiming that the plane rose to an altitude of 90 metres before appearing to shake (possibly indicating a stall) and veer to the left, while others said that the aircraft failed even to clear the landing lights (not ILS antenna as mentioned in many media) at the end of the runway before veering to the right and crashing immediately.

It had been suggested that illegal overloading could be responsible for the aircraft's apparent inability to climb, but confirming this would be almost impossible given the intense fire produced and the presence of large amounts of debris from the houses which were destroyed; however, observers reported smelling durian fruit in the crash .[1]. It had been widely reported that the overloading was due to 2 or 3 tonnes of durian fruit brought by the Sumatran governor and former governor travelling on the flight intended as gifts to bring to Jakarta, and not listed on the flight's load manifest [2]. The reports claimed that the governors had already been refused travel on Garuda, the national airline, because of the excess weight of the highly prized fruit, which were then in season in Sumatra. A preliminary probe into the crash had found a fuel problem with one of the plane's engines.^{[citation needed]} Other causes, including engine failure and pilot error, were also under investigation. The black box flight recorders were recovered and sent to the US for analysis.

Official investigation

The official final report on the accident was released by the National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) of Indonesia on 1 January 2009. According to it the probable causes of the accident were the following:

• The aircraft took-off with improper take off configuration namely with retracted flaps and slats causing the aircraft failed (sic) to lift off.
• Improper checklist procedure execution had led to failure to identify the flap in retract position.
• The aircraft’s take off warning horn was not heard on the CAM channel of the CVR. It is possible that the take-off configuration warning horn was not sounding.

Similar incidents

Other accidents where the aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff, due to improper settings of flaps/slats, with parallel failure of the takeoff misconfiguration warning horn system:

• Delta Air Lines Flight 1141
• Spanair Flight 5022
• Northwest Airlines Flight 255
• Lufthansa Flight 540

Notable passengers

• Rizal Nurdin
• Raja Inal Siregar

Sources

• Associated Press "Indonesian Airliner Crashes Into City Killing 147". Los Angeles Times, September 5, 2005
• Richard Lloyd Parry "Times Online". Times Online, September 6, 2005

• Suara Merdeka Misteri Durian 2 Ton di Mandala Airlines
• Suara Merdeka Dirut Mandala Akui Angkut 2,7 Ton Durian

External links

• Final Report - National Transportation Safety Committee
• Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network
• Accident description on planecrashinfo
• Photograph of the wreckage PK-RIM. From Airliners.net. Retrieved 2010-01-23.