Merpati Nusantara Airlines Flight 8968 (MZ8968/MNA8968) was a passenger flight which crashed off the coast of the Indonesian province of West Papua on 7 May 2011. The aircraft involved, a Xian MA60, was operating Merpati Nusantara Airlines' scheduled domestic service from Sorong to Kaimana, both in West Papua. It crashed into the sea while on approach to Kaimana in heavy rain condition, about before the runway. All 25 people on board the aircraft were killed. It remains the only fatal accident involving a Xian MA60.
The Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee concluded that the crash was caused by pilot error. During the approach, both pilots were struggling to see the airport due to adverse weather in the area and eventually initiated a go around procedure. However, they did not pay enough attention to the bank angle of the aircraft as both of them were looking out of the window. The lack of situational awareness eventually caused the Xian MA60 to overbank and it subsequently plunged into the sea.
Aircraft The aircraft involved was a Chinese-built twin-turboprop Xian MA60 with Indonesian registration PK-MZK. According to NTSC, the aircraft was manufactured in 2007 with a manufacturer's serial number (MSN) of 0603. The aircraft had entered service in October 2010, logging fewer than 700 hours since then. The aircraft was equipped with two Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127J engines.
Passengers and crews Officials initially reported that there were a total of 27 people on board the aircraft. According to the passenger manifest that had been issued by Merpati, there were 25 people on board the aircraft, all Indonesian, comprising 21 passengers and 4 crew members. The 21 passengers consisted of 18 adults, 2 children and 1 infant. The four crew members consisted of two pilots and two flight attendants. There were two flight engineers on board the aircraft but they were listed as passengers on the manifest.
The pilot was identified as 55-year-old Captain Purwandi Wahyu. He joined Merpati Nusantara Airlines in 1977 as a co-pilot of a DHC-6. According to records, the captain was very experienced as he had accumulated a total of 24,470 flying hours. However, only 199 hours were on the Xian MA60. The majority of his flying experience was on the Fokker aircraft, particularly the Fokker F100 in which he had accrued a total of 6,982 flying hours. The co-pilot was identified as 36-year-old First Officer Paul Nap. First Officer Nap joined Merpati in 2007. Contrary to Captain Wahyu, the majority of First Officer Nap's flying experience was on the Xian MA60. Of the 370 flying hours, 234 hours were on the type.
Flight
Flight 8968 was a domestic passenger service from Sorong to Kaimana. First Officer Nap was the pilot flying while Captain Wahyu was the pilot monitoring. According to the flight log, the aircraft and the crew had flown for three other passenger flights earlier in the day, all of which were in Papua and West Papua. The flight was planned to be conducted under instrument flight rules (IFR), while the approach would be conducted under the visual flight rules (VFR) as the destination airport did not publish the procedure for an IFR approach.
At 12:45 p.m local time, Flight 8968 took off from Sorong with 21 passengers and 4 crew members. It was cleared to fly at an altitude of within the controlled airspace. Following its departure from the area's controlled airspace, the crew later contacted Biak and continued their flight to Kaimana.
At 13:20 p.m, the crew established contact with the controller at Kaimana and announced the estimated time of arrival of 13:54 p.m. The crew subsequently received information regarding the weather in Kaimana. The controller reported that the airport was under moderate rain with a visibility of approximately . The crew continued their flight and the aircraft began to descend at 13:25 p.m at a distance of approximately from Kaimana.
At around 13:30 p.m, Kaimana controller reported that the weather had deteriorated and the airport was under heavy rain. Captain Wahyu then asked the controller if there was any remaining area that was not raining. The controller subsequently responded that the area south of the airport was still clear. Captain Wahyu then asked First Officer Nap to fly towards the south of the airport for an attempted visual approach.
Approximately seven nautical miles from the airport, the crew gave another positional report. The controller in Kaimana, however, announced that it was still raining heavily at the airport and the visibility had deteriorated to . Captain Wahyu then asked the controller if the runway could be seen from the tower. The tower confirmed that they could see the runway and the crew decided to continue the approach to Kaimana.
The aircraft was then configured for landing and the cabin crew were asked to prepare the passengers. The autopilot was disengaged at an altitude of . Captain Wahyu then took over the control from First Officer Nap. The crew then tried to locate the runway but due to the limited visibility they were unable to see it. They then decided to initiate a go around. The aircraft was put into a climb and turned to the left. The engines were accelerated and the flaps and the landing gear were retracted.
The crew initially turned the aircraft to the left with a bank angle of 11 degree. The angle then began to increase, reaching as much as 38 degrees. The aircraft rapidly descended towards the sea with a rate of descent of and within seconds the aircraft plunged into the sea at a speed of . The aircraft broke into four main pieces and sank approximately southwest of the runway.
The controller lost all contact with the crew of Flight 8968. An eyewitness then phoned the controller and stated that a Merpati aircraft had just crashed into the water near the airport. Subsequently, airport personnel and rescue services were deployed to the crash site. According to a local navy officer, the aircraft "exploded" on impact. There were no survivors.
Recovery The Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency announced that a total of fifteen bodies have been recovered in the immediate aftermath of the crash, with the remainder still trapped inside the wreckage. Indonesian Navy, local police, airport officials and members of the public were involved in the search for the victims. A search involving ten Navy divers was initiated to recover additional bodies, though weather conditions and equipment difficulties made the effort unsuccessful. The search eventually had to be temporarily halted due to strong current, which reportedly had shifted the wreckage by 500 meters from its original position.
The wreckage was found submerged in the shallow sea between deep, located approximately off the coast of Kaimana and before the runway. It was spread over an area of . The aircraft's flight data recorder was recovered on 8 May. According to officials, it was retrieved from the depth of , beneath a body of the victims. On the same day, officials also announced that the bodies of 20 people, including 2 flight attendants, have been recovered from the crash site. Of the 20, a total of 16 have been identified.
On 9 May, search and rescue personnel managed to pinpoint the location of the cockpit voice recorder. They also recovered two bodies from the crash site, including a 5-year-old child, bringing the total number of recovered bodies to 22. Officials reported that the remains of Captain Wahyu and First Officer Nap were still missing. On 10 May, rescue personnel managed to recover another body from the crash site. The bodies of the captain and the first officer were later discovered inside the cockpit. However, the recovery operation was postponed due to strong undersea current in the area. Their remains were recovered on the next day. All 25 victims had been recovered on 11 May and were immediately repatriated to their respective families.
Salvage workers initiated the recovery operation for the wreckage of the aircraft on 20 May and lasted until 31 May. According to the NTSC, they managed to recover most of the aircraft's parts, including the forward fuselage and the cockpit.
After examination, it was discovered that the contents of the recorder were encrypted in Chinese; as a result, the recorder was sent to China to be decrypted.
Response As Indonesia was holding the 19th ASEAN Summit at the exact same day in Jakarta, then-Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono broke the news of the crash to the attending guests and asked them to hold a minute of silence for the victims of Flight 8968. In response to the crash, the president ordered immediate recovery operation for the victims of the flight. In the immediate aftermath, Merpati set up a hotline for families of the passengers and crews of Flight 8968. The airline also sent three aircraft for logistical matters, one each from Makassar, Biak and Sorong. Following the crash, CEO of Merpati Sardjono Jhony immediately flew to Kaimana.
Spokesman from the airline stated that victims could be provided with compensation of up to Rp 700 million. Another Rp300 million would be provided from the London-based insurance company Aon, totaling 1 billion rupiah in compensation. In line with the nation's aviation regulation, each victims would also be provided with at least Rp50 million rupiah from government-owned insurance company Jasa Raharja.
On 9 May, the Indonesian People's Representative Council held the 4th session of the 2010-2011 agenda. During the opening of the session, a minute of silence for the victims of Flight 8968 was observed. Members of the parliament questioned the Ministry of Transportation following the discovery that the Xian MA60 had not acquired FAA certification. Deputy speaker of the House, Priyo Budi Santoso, stated that a special probe would be required to investigate the matter. Commission V of the People's Representatives Council eventually asked the Indonesian government to ground every Xian MA60 aircraft in service in Indonesia and to conduct an official audit, but their request to ground Merpati MA60 was denied by then-Minister of State Owned Enterprises Mustafa Abubakar. There were also calls to the government to merge Merpati into Garuda Indonesia Airlines, the flag carrier of Indonesia, and to evaluate every aviation policies in the country. After the hearing, the Indonesian Ministry of Transportation announced that the ministry would evaluate the operation of Merpati Nusantara Airlines for at least 6 months, including an official audit.
There were also speculations regarding the airworthiness of the aircraft. Prior to the crash, the Xian MA60 had been grounded by authorities due to visible cracks on the horizontal stabilizer. This shortcoming had been acknowledged by the manufacturer and several maintenance changes were later implemented. Xian Aircraft International Corporation (XAIC) denied claims that the aircraft was unairworthy and stated that the aircraft had met the required FAA standards. Minister of Transportation initially stated that people should not spread baseless speculations on the quality of the aircraft. Hatta Rajasa, Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, reiterated the same statement, adding that people should wait for the result of the official investigation. The Transportation Ministry eventually conducted a thorough evaluation on the airworthiness of Merpati's MA60 fleet. The investigation didn't find any issues on eleven of Merpati Xian MA60 fleet.
On 10 May, Merpati Nusantara's president, Sardjono Jhony Tjitrokusumo offered to resign if the crash was the fault of the airline, saying that "I am ready to tender my resignation if the error was from Merpati's side."