T

he Indonesian Military (TNI) brushed off speculation that human error was behind the crash of a recently refurbished Hercules C-130 plane as it attempted to land at Wamena airport, Papua, on Sunday.

It had been suggested that the pilots of the ill-fated aircraft may have recklessly jeopardized a safe landing by going through bad weather.

Wamena Airport chief Rasbuhani Umar previously disclosed that another military Hercules plane, scheduled to land moments before the crash, opted to return to its airport of origin for safety reasons after airport officials had issued a warning over bad weather and poor visibility.

The crew of the crashed plane, however, insisted on landing, leading to speculation that the pilots miscalculated the risks and ignored safety concerns.

“It is too early to conclude now. The investigation is still ongoing,” Air Force spokesman Air Commodore Jemi Trisonjaya said.

He maintained bad weather was still the main suspected cause of the crash.

He also questioned the validity of the information about the other Hercules.

“We have yet to receive such information [on the returned Hercules]. The investigation team is exploring all possibilities including human error, but for the time being, bad weather is seen as the most likely factor,” Jemi said on Monday.

The crash, in which all 13 people on board died, was at least the 10th crash of a military Hercules since the 1960s.

The crashed aircraft was on a dual mission, for navigation training and to transport 12 tons of cement and rice from Timika to Wamena.

The 36-year-old C-130 arrived in Indonesia in March this year as one of the refurbished Hercules planes donated by the Australian government. The agreement was made in 2012 during the presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Jemi said three more C-130s from Australia were expected to arrive next year.

He added that the Air Force would prefer to procure new aircraft to minimize the risk of accidents in the future. “We hope that in the future all defense systems to be procured are new,” Jemi added.

TNI commander Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo paid tribute to the 13 dead personnel during a military ceremony in Abdulrachman Saleh military base in Malang, East Java, on Sunday before the bodies were transferred to their respective families for burial.

The accident has prompted lawmakers to ask for a higher defense budget to enable the Defense Ministry to procure new, rather than refurbished, equipment.

“[Lack of funding] is one of the reasons. We all know that the base line of the Defense Ministry’s budget for 2017 is supposed to be Rp 209 trillion [US$15.7 billion], but we only have Rp 108 trillion, which is far from what we need,” House Commission I chairman Abdul Kharis Almasyhari of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) said.

Since 1963, Indonesia has lost at least 10 Hercules C-130 aircraft. The TNI operated a total of 28 C-130 Hercules of various types in 2014 and two of them have since crashed.

The worst Hercules accident occurred in 2015 when a C-130 aircraft crashed into a residential area in Medan, North Sumatra, killing at least 120 people on board and on the ground.

Djemi Amnifu contributed to the story from Kupang.