A Lion Air Plane, Owned By The Conglomerate Rusdi Kirana, Failed To Land In Ambon Monday Afternoon Due To Heavy Rain

Lion Air plane. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Angkasa Pura (AP) I as the aviation authority at Ambon's Pattimura Airport stated that the plane from the Lion Air airline on the Makassar-Ambon route on Monday afternoon failed to land and returned to its origin (return to base / RTB) due to bad weather in the capital of Maluku Province.

"Lion Air JT886 from Makassar to Ambon has RTB at 13.15 WIT, meaning that it will return to Makassar because of the weather," said Public Relations of Angkasa Pura I Pattimura Airport, Aditya Narendra, as quoted by Antara, Monday, July 11.

He explained that the plane should have landed on schedule at Pattimura Airport at 13.40 p.m. local time. However, the pilot decided to turn around and return to Makassar due to safety considerations. Heavy rain has been pouring down Ambon City since Monday morning until noon.

"The decision was taken by the pilot after communicating with the AirNav Airport," he said.

As a result of this incident, passengers who were supposed to be transported by plane from Ambon Airport still had to wait without certainty.

Aditya explained that for flight safety at Pattimura Airport, the minimum safe visibility for flights is a minimum of 5.000 meters.

"If it's below that, the visibility is at risk for flights," he said.

He said extreme weather in the form of heavy rain accompanied by strong winds had disrupted flights and the worst occurred on Friday, July 8 last week. The extreme weather at that time forced eight flights that were supposed to land at Ambon Airport to be canceled.

Hundreds of passengers who were supposed to be served by eight flights that day from Ambon Airport, were forced to return home and were only able to depart on Saturday, July 9.

So far, there are 38 flights to and from Pattimura Airport every day. Dozens of flights were dominated by commercial flights and the rest were charter flights and pioneer flights.