Mandala Airlines PK-RIM Tragedy: Falling In Medan And Killing The Governor Of North Sumatra

The Mandala Airlines plane crashed into a residential area in Medan. (Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - Airplane accidents often color the history of Indonesian aerospace. The news will be excited everywhere. Take for example the tragedy of the crash of the Mandala Airlines PK-RIM plane with flight number RI-091. The plane with the Medan-Jakarta route was not strong enough to fly and crashed over residential areas.

In fact, the plane just took off from Polonia Airport. The victims were piled up, including the Governor of North Sumatra, Tengku Rizal Nurdin. Medan residents were excited. They were traumatized, not playing.

The construction of the airport far from residential areas is nothing new. The Dutch colonizers have done it. The narrative was present at Polonia Airport, Medan. One of the goals is to prevent damage when the aircraft is low. Alias does not harm local residents.

Recently, development began to stretch in various regions when Indonesia was independent. Medan is like that. The airport ring area, which was initially quiet, began to be crowded. Residents' settlements grew. The New Order government even had time to predict that the growth would bring big problems.

The option of moving the airport was echoed. However, this desire was hampered by the economic crisis until the New Order collapsed. The next government has no focus on moving the airport. As a result, the tragedy is feared to occur.

The Mandala Airlines RI-091 aircraft to Medan-Jakarta carrying 117 passengers (112 passengers and 5 crew) is an example. The Boeing 737-200 aircraft prepared to take off at 09.40 on September 5, 2005. The plane took off at a minimum speed of 125 knots.

Problems arise. The plane was not strong enough to fly. The condition was shown by the plane that hit the runway boundary sign. The collision damaged the tank on the wing and the avtur was leaking. The East Askar pilot tried to deal with the situation.

He tried to turn the plane back to the airport. Unfortunately, that desire was never achieved. The damaged aircraft engine caused the plane to crash into a settlement. The victims of the passengers reached 101 people, the Governor of North Sumatra, Tungku Rizal Nurdin, including 47 people.

According to many, the Boeing 737-200 aircraft with the flight number RI-091 was originally normal. The plane has entered a speed of 125 knots or on the flight known as V2-speed when the aircraft wheels have gone off the runway and then rose into the air. In speed between V1 and V2, if a damage is found, the pilot can still cancel flying.

At best, the consequence is that the plane will crash at the end of the runway. Surprisingly, at that time the East Askar pilot and Daufir Copilot Effendi chose to press the gas and continue the V2 stage, and the plane was lifted up to 10 meters. Maybe, they saw no problem at that time. Malang. The plane could not go up and reaches the Vcl stage, namely the speed of the air to a minimum altitude of 500 feet, "said Untung Widyanto and his friends in a report in Tempo magazine entitled Seribu Tanya in Polonia (2005).

The Mandala plane crash dominated the mass media. The sadness of the victim's family is unbearable. So is the sadness of the Medan residents. Residents who watched the plane crash became traumatized every time there was an airplane flying from Polonia Airport. The government also considers the incident a dark phase in the world of national flights.

However, that does not mean that the cause of the accident is not discussed. Discussions about the cause of the plane crash appear everywhere. Experts in the aerospace world have sprung up. The views presented vary.

Some consider the Mandala plane to be overloaded. The aircraft's assets carried loads exceeding the maximum limit of 52 tons. The narrative is refuted. This condition is because the flight manifest states that the load is 51.96 tons.

There is also speculation that the Mandala aircraft uses an oplosan avtur. The avtur is considered to be able to damage the engine. As a result, the plane could not speed up at its maximum so that an accident occurred.

Recently, the variety of speculations has subsided as data from the aircraft's black box is researched. A black box analysis shows that the cause of the accident is the non-functionation of aircraft lift-style tools. This means that accidents have nothing to do with overload or oplosan avtur.

In the case of the Mandala Air plane crash that failed to take off from Polonia Airport, Medan, September 2005, the black box analysis took longer. Only in October the following year, the NTSC announced the cause of the tragedy that killed 101 passengers and 47 residents. In fact, the cause was single.

The results of the analysis of the hit box at that time concluded that the Boeing 737-200 accident was caused by the non-function of aircraft lift equipment (flaps and prayer plates). As a result, the unlucky plane could not fly and hit a building and vehicle on Jalan Ginting, Medan," wrote Tempo magazine report entitled Revealing Kelam from the Black Box (2007).