Putri Prameshwari & Made Arya Kencana

9 Hurt in Bali After Smoking Jet Engine Sends Passengers Scrambling

National aviation officials plan to evaluate Batavia Air personnel after an incident at Denpasar’s airport on Thursday in which nine passengers were hurt on one of the carrier’s jet when smoke from the engine caused a panic.

Herry Bhakti Singayuda, director general of civil aviation at the Transportation Ministry, said the cabin crew of the aircraft should have been able to calm passengers who were frightened after seeing smoke emanating from the rear engine of the plane and rushed to exit through the emergency doors.

“We will evaluate why the crew could not stop the passengers from panicking,” Herry said.

Eddy Haryanto, a spokesman for Batavia Air, explained that the pilot had just turned on the engines and the smoke was part of the ignition process.

“It’s a normal procedure,” he said, “but the passengers panicked and tried to save themselves.”

“There was no fire,” he said, adding that all the passengers had been evacuated and several of them were rushed to the hospital for treatment.

Heru Legowo, general manager of PT Angkasa Pura I, which manages Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar, said the nine injured passengers were being treated at Sanglah Hospital. Three of them are suffering from serious injuries.

Sonny Boy Saerang, one of the passengers, said he thought the plane was on fire.

“We were hysterical,” he said, “and we were tired and upset because we had been abandoned by the airline during the overnight delay.”

The Boeing 737-400 had been carrying 148 passengers from Surabaya, East Java to Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara. However, it was forced to stop in Bali on Wednesday night because an emergency forced Kupang’s El Tari Airport to close.

Sonny said the passengers had to wait at the airport because there was no overnight compensation from the carrier.

On Wednesday night, a Merpati Airlines’ Fokker 100 had to perform an emergency landing at Kupang airport after its left wheel failed to release.

Sukandi, public relations officer for Merpati, said the pilot, Capt. Budi Kartawijaya, decided to delay landing and requested the airport prepare ambulances and fire trucks for an emergency landing scenario.

Fortunately, the pilot managed to land the aircraft smoothly on only two wheels and all passengers and crew were unharmed.

“Everybody was safe and sound,” Sukandi said.

The plane, carrying 88 passengers, was en route from Makassar to Kupang.

JA Barata, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT), said that a team of three had been sent to Kupang to investigate the El Tari case.

“This is a serious incident,” he said, adding that as of Thursday afternoon, El Tari was still closed.

However, Barata said, KNKT would only monitor the Batavia Air incident as it was not considered as serious.

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