Indonesian plane crash increases pressure for military overhaul

The deadly crash of a 51-year-old Indonesian air force transport plane this week has turned the spotlight on the country's ageing military equipment and given new momentum to the president's plans to increase defence spending.

The Hercules C-130 aircraft came down Tuesday in a residential neighbourhood in the city of Medan just minutes after take-off, exploding in a fireball and leaving 142 people dead. Almost all those killed were on the aircraft.

It was the sixth fatal crash in the past decade involving an Indonesian air force jet, according to the Aviation Safety Network, which tracks aviation accidents.

With more than 17,000 islands, Indonesia has a large military but in recent years has spent less than one percent of GDP on defence, far below its neighbours, with priority instead given to areas such as education and health.

The armed forces have a much reduced status since the 1998 downfall of dictator Suharto, a general who gave them a prominent role in public life, and there has been a reluctance to give the military more money due to long-running concerns about mismanagement.

Attempts to modernise have also been hampered by a US arms embargo imposed for six years until 2005 over rights abuse by the military in East Timor.
"Our weapons systems are very old," Indonesian military expert Al Araf told AFP, citing defence data released in 2007 showing almost 40 percent of the military's transport aircraft were not airworthy. "A large part of Indonesia's air force systems are in poor condition."

Initial investigations indicate an engine failure caused the crash, according to the air force, which has denied it was due to the plane being overloaded with civilians who had paid to be on board, in violation of military rules. The military denies payments were taken.

That analysis fits with witness accounts that said the plane was tilting and emitting black smoke before it crashed, leaving scenes of horror with several buildings destroyed and cars reduced to flaming wrecks.

- 'Fundamental overhaul' -

President Joko Widodo, who took office in October, had already announced plans to increase military spending to 1.5 percent of GDP -- more than $13 billion -- in the coming years.

He said the crash had provided new momentum for a "fundamental overhaul" of management and procurement of defence equipment.
However he suggested extra money alone would not be enough and that a change of approach was needed: "We cannot just keep buying weapons, we need to shift to modernising our weapons systems."

An editorial in the Jakarta Post newspaper also called for a shift in focus, away from spending lavishly on new fighter jets to purchasing more desperately needed transport planes.

The crash has triggered growing political support for modernisation and extra spending, with a lawmaker calling on the government to purchase newer aircraft.

"It's a pity that our pilots died because of old planes and not on the battleground," Tubagus Hasanuddin, who sits on a parliamentary commission that oversees defence issues, told AFP.

Indonesia's two squadrons of Hercules transporters have the task of transporting large numbers of military personnel across the sprawling archipelago and also distributing aid during the frequent natural disasters that hit the country.
But armed forces chief General Moeldoko said the newest of the air force's Hercules, which are produced by US defence giant Lockheed Martin, were from the 1980s and several -- like the one involved in Tuesday's crash -- were manufactured in the 1960s.

Since 1985, six air force Hercules have crashed and tragedy has struck more than once for some families. One air force officer killed in this week's disaster lost his elder brother in a Hercules crash in 1991, which killed 135 soldiers.

While Widodo's plans to overhaul the military and increase spending appear to have new momentum following this week's accident, defence analysts noted his predecessor, former general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, notably failed to do so.

While Indonesia's economy has been expanding rapidly in recent years, huge amounts of money are needed for social welfare programmes and much is lost to corruption in one of the world's most graft-ridden countries.
"(Yudhoyono) didn't do it even after promising it and we will have to wait and see whether Joko Widodo can do this," Jon Grevatt, IHS Jane's Asia-Pacific defence industry analyst, told AFP, adding that making the military budget increase to 1.5 percent annually would be a "tall order".

"But if it does, then Indonesia's defence spending will accelerate rapidly over the next few years."