Second Indonesian water-bombing helicopter crashes

A helicopter battling Indonesian wildfires crashed into a river yesterday as it scooped water, an official said, with two crew members rescued and one still missing.

The crash in Borneo Island’s South Kalimantan province was the second in days involving a firefighting helicopter, after a military chopper plunged into the waters off Borneo on Wednesday, killing three people.

Two Australian nationals had survived yesterday’s incident and were “safe,” said Berton Panjaitan, a spokesman for the national disaster mitigation agency, while the third member of the crew, an Indonesian, remained unaccounted for.

Indonesian military personnel carry the coffin of Dudi Firmansyah, who was killed in a helicopter crash during a wildfire firefighting operation in Central Kalimantan, during his funeral at the Cikutra Heroes Cemetery in Bandung, West Java, on Thursday.

Photo: Reuters

Dramatic video footage showed the firefighting helicopter being slowly dragged downward after filling its bucket from the Barito River, eventually plunging nose-first into the water.

The Southeast Asian archipelago has for months been struggling to control blazes that have burned through large swathes of Sumatra, Borneo and Papua islands, causing choking haze that drifted to neighboring Malaysia, East Timor and Singapore.

“This incident occurred while the air fleet was conducting a water-bombing operation,” spokesman Berton said of yesterday’s crash. “In footage captured by an amateur video, the helicopter appears to lose control while maneuvering after scooping up water from the river with a bambi bucket.”

The Eurocopter EC225LP Super Puma belonged to a company the disaster mitigation agency had contracted for water-bombing operations, he added.

On Wednesday, a helicopter carrying eight people crashed during a mission to fight fires in Tanjung Puting National Park, home to animals including critically endangered Bornean orangutans.