14 Sep 2016

Another plane incident in Papua

8:44 am on 14 September 2016

An Indonesian cargo plane had a serious technical malfunction while landing at an airport in West Papua yesterday.

The Trigana Air Service plane was touching down at Wamena airport in the Highlands of Papua province in the morning when it slammed into the runway and lost both main components of its landing gear.

Plane lands at 20 seconds.

According to CNN Indonesia, the plane skidded for a kilometre on its belly along the runway before coming to rest to the side of the strip.

No injuries were reported.

The pilot, Matt Dearden, said the plane was in low cloud when he attempted to land early on Tuesday, but the plane touched down "very hard" in a nose high attitude which instantly collapsed the landing gear.

Mr Dearden said that such incidents happen far too often in this region.

He noted that there was an almost identical crash a year ago at Wamena airport which is surrounded by high mountains and often has cloud at unusually low levels.

The pilot said there is no instrument landing equipment at Wamnea so all landings are hand flown visually.