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akarta: A top military official said Tuesday that preliminary findings indicated that engine failure was the main cause of the Indonesian Air Force Fokker F-27 crash last Thursday, which claimed 11 lives, including residents of a nearby neighborhood. Air Force chief of staff Marshal Imam Sufaat told reporters in Jakarta that to this point it was believed that one of the F-27’s two turboprop engines was not functioning, thus prompting the accident.

“According to our latest investigation data, we assumed that one of the engines – the left one to be specific – was not working,” he said.

The Air Force chief of staff was speaking on the sidelines of a meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who had just arrived at Halim Perdanakusuma Airport after paying a state visit to Ecuador following the G20 Summit in Mexico.

Sufaat said that he had reported the accident directly to the President, including early assumptions of the cause of the plane crash.

“We have reported the chronology of the crash to the President, including our assumptions so far. However, we will have to wait for the lab results to determine the real cause of the incident,” he said as quoted by tribunnews.com.

The Fokker F-27 aircraft was on a routine training mission at the base before it crashed into the Rajawali housing complex near Halim Perdanakusuma Air Force Base in East Jakarta on Thursday last week.

All seven officers aboard the F-27 and four family members of an Air Force officer living in the housing complex were killed in the crash. (asa/swd)