Qualla: 2016 Indonesian Air Force C-130 Crash

2016 Indonesian Air Force C-130 Crash: Introduction

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. It was 6:02 on a foggy Papuan morning when the Indonesian Air Force C-130 called Wamena Tower for landing. The Hercules had lifted off from Timika at 5:35, carrying twelve crew members, one passenger, and twelve tonnes of logistics into the highland hub of Wamena. Visibility was poor. The tower suggested switching the approach from Runway 15 to Runway 33, and the pilot, Major Marlon A Kawer, agreed. At 6:08 the controllers caught the aircraft visually in the murk. Sixty seconds later, they lost it. The Hercules had struck Mount Lisuwa on short final, near the Runway 33 threshold, in cloud so thick the mountain itself was invisible to the crew a minute before impact.

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2016 Indonesian Air Force C-130 Crash: A New Aircraft on Its First Highland Winter

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. The C-130H Hercules that went down near Wamena had been in Indonesian service for only nine months. It had been delivered in March 2016 from Australia - the first of five ex-Royal Australian Air Force Hercules that Indonesia had purchased as part of a planned fleet expansion that...

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2016 Indonesian Air Force C-130 Crash: The Runway Change That Did Not Save Them

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. Wamena sits at about 5,400 feet in the Baliem Valley, surrounded by high country. Its main runway, 15/33, runs roughly between Mount Lisuwa to the north and other peaks to the south. Morning weather in the Baliem is notoriously volatile - the valley can fill with cold fog that dr...

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2016 Indonesian Air Force C-130 Crash: Thirteen Dead

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. All thirteen people aboard died on impact. The wreckage came to rest burned, the tail section detached from the main fuselage. A crisis center was established at Sentani Airport, and thirty Air Force personnel were deployed to the site; because the wreckage lay near the approach ...

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2016 Indonesian Air Force C-130 Crash: An Aging Fleet, an Outcry

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. Indonesian public reaction was immediate. The C-130 fleet of the TNI-AU had suffered a series of crashes in the preceding years, most notably the 2015 Hercules crash in Medan that killed 139 people. Many Indonesians demanded a complete grounding of the Hercules fleet; some questi...

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2016 Indonesian Air Force C-130 Crash: A Mountain That Keeps Its Name

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. Mount Lisuwa, the peak that stopped Flight 9760D at Wamena, is one of the ridges that ring the Baliem Valley - the same valley that Australian patrol officer Mick Leahy first flew over in 1938, looking down in astonishment at a civilization of 50,000 Dani farmers no European had ...

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