A cargo aircraft of Indonesia's Trigana Air's cargo aircraft barely escaped a major accident today while landing at the Wamena airport in eastern Papua province. The aircraft skidded on the runway but no injuries were reported.
According to BBC Indonesia, the aircraft, which was travelling from Papua's Sentani airport, failed to land properly at the airport after one of its wheels broke.
The aircraft was carrying 14 tonnes of fuel, rice and sugar belonging to Indonesian state energy firm Pertamina. The fuel load was safe, the marketing director for Pertamina Ahmad Bambang told later to online news portal detik.com.
According to Ahmad, the aircraft skidded on runaway 33 and landed 2km away from its original landing position.
He also said that the cargo will be transferred to another aircraft so that the supplies can reach its destination.
The Wamena airport was shut down immediately in order to clear the runway, reported the news agency.
The aircraft suffered severe damage on its left engine. The fire fighting teams were called to douse the fire.
Trigana Air Service is based in Jakarta and started its operations in early 1991 but has a long history of safety issues. In 2015, a Trigana Air aircraft crashed in the mountainous region of Papua killing 54 people. But prior to that, the carrier has been involved in 19 serious safety incidents since 1992.
In 2012, pilots of a DHC-6 Twin Otter lost control and veered the aircraft into an airport building after several shots were fired at it while landing in Papua's Mulia Airport. Out of eight passengers on board , one was killed and four others were severely injured.
Several aircraft that were heavily damaged in these incidents include one Antonov An-72, one ATR 42-300, 13 Twin Otters, and three Fokker F27s.
