Deadliest aviation disasters in Indonesia’s history

Due to its geographical positioning and sporadic distribution of its islands, Indonesia banks heavily on its air transport but the growth of the aviation sector has not been able to match with the economic boom as they are struggling to find enough well-trained personnel. As a result, it has suffered a string of deadly plane crashes.

On Saturday, a Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500 crashed about four minutes after it took off from Jakarta.

The European airspace had once banned all Indonesian airlines over the same safety fears. However, following improvements in 2018, the EU had removed them from its blacklist.

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Out of all the aviation disasters, some have been the worst in the nation’s history.

An Air Force plane in 1991 had crashed in East Jakarta only minutes after it took off. The engine had caught fire killing 135 people. Only one passenger had survived.

In 1997, 234 people died when an Airbus A-300B4 operated by Garuda Indonesia crashed in a smog-shrouded ravine in North Sumatra, near Medan’s airport.

In 1997, A SilkAir flight had crashed into a river near Palembang, a city in Indonesia. On its way to Singapore, the plane crash had killed 104 passengers and crew. The investigation had pointed towards a possible pilot murder-suicide.

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In 2014, an AirAsia plane during stormy weather plunged into the Java sea. 162 people who were flying to Singapore were killed in the incident.

In October 2018, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 from Lion Air had crashed off the coast of Indonesia. This incident had killed 189 passengers and crew members. Problems with the plane’s anti-stall system were detected as a reason for the crash.