Second Wildfire-Fighting Helicopter Crashes in Borneo Within Days, Leaving One Indonesian Crew Member Missing

JAKARTA, Investortrust.id — An aerial firefighting helicopter chartered by Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) crashed into the Barito River in South Kalimantan on Sunday, leaving an Indonesian crew member missing and triggering a major search and rescue mission just four days after a fatal military helicopter disaster on the island.

The Eurocopter Super Puma H-225 was conducting water-bombing sorties targeting forest and peatland blazes in Barito Kuala Regency when it went down near Tabatan Baru Village. While early accounts indicated all personnel had survived, disaster officials revised the manifest status on Sunday afternoon, confirming that only the two Australian cockpit pilots were recovered alive and evacuated for medical treatment. The third crew member, identified as Indonesian national Yayan Supyansuri, who served as the helicopter landing officer, remained unaccounted for in the river.

Sonar Units Deployed in River Search

The National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) dispatch center in Banjarmasin mobilized an 18-member specialist rescue team equipped with rigid inflatable boats, tactical dive suits, and aqua-eye sonar scanners.

The crash site sits approximately 141 kilometers from the provincial search and rescue headquarters, or 71 nautical miles by river from the Basirih SAR pier. Combined search elements comprising the Indonesian Air Force, National Police, local military command officers, and riverbank communities mobilized along the river corridor to cordon off the partially submerged wreckage and comb downstream currents.

“Contrary to initial reports suggesting all crew survived, the latest data confirms that out of three crew members, only two have been found alive,” said Berton SP Panjaitan, acting head of disaster data, information, and communication at BNPB.

The disaster agency stated that current priorities center on locating the missing crewman, ensuring medical stabilization for the surviving flight crew, securing the fuselage along the riverbank, and cooperating fully with transport safety regulators to establish the root cause of the crash. The agency also announced a comprehensive audit of its aerial operations, encompassing fleet airworthiness, water-scooping protocols, crew fatigue, and meteorological flight parameters.

Second Aerial Disaster in Four Days

Sunday’s river crash marks the second catastrophic aerial firefighting accident across the Kalimantan provinces in less than a week, underscoring the compounding hazards confronting aircrews battling severe regional peat fires.

On Wednesday, an Indonesian Army Aviation (Penerbad) Mil Mi-17V5 transport helicopter carrying registration HA-5235 crashed into coastal waters while scooping water for firefighting runs near Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan. The heavy-lift military helicopter was carrying eight personnel when it went down; three crew members were killed and five suffered severe injuries.

According to flight telemetry provided by air traffic service provider AirNav Indonesia, the military aircraft had departed Kuala Pembuang Airport at 10:20 a.m. bound for fire containment sectors in Telaga Pulang before diverting toward Pematang Limau due to adverse weather. Contact was lost less than an hour into the flight during water-collection maneuvers.

“In addition to supporting the evacuation process, we are ensuring the readiness of facilities and services at Kuala Pembuang Airport so that incident handling proceeds smoothly without disrupting public commercial flight services,” said Director General of Civil Aviation Lukman F. Laisa.

The remains of two fallen military aviators treated at Kuala Pembuang Regional General Hospital were repatriated to Semarang, Central Java, aboard an Indonesian Army CASA 212 utility transport. With two frontline airframes lost and multi-casualty outcomes recorded within 96 hours, civil aviation regulators and defense authorities face mounting pressure to evaluate operational risk thresholds amidst hazardous smoke haze and challenging water-scoop conditions.

Wildfire Crisis and Aerial Containment Strain

The back-to-back crashes in Borneo come amid Indonesia’s most severe wildfire crisis in years, as prolonged drought driven by regional climate anomalies has ignited sprawling peatland and forest blazes (karhutla) across Sumatra and Kalimantan. Dense plumes of toxic transboundary haze have forced school closures, grounded regional commercial flights, and prompted emergency diplomatic friction with neighboring Malaysia and Singapore over cross-border air pollution.

In response to the accelerating crisis, the central government mounted an extraordinary multi-agency mobilization, deploying roughly 60,000 joint personnel—comprising military troops, police, local forestry task forces, and civil defense units—alongside a frontline fleet of 48 chartered and state-owned aircraft dedicated to continuous water-bombing and weather modification operations.

Despite round-the-clock containment efforts and community relief distributions—including NGO and philanthropic medical aid across West and Central Kalimantan—the operational toll on firefighting forces has mounted steeply. The compounding hazards of dense, blinding smoke haze, severe thermal downdrafts over peat combustion zones, and the inherent mechanical stress of low-altitude water scooping have severely strained aviation assets.

With three army aviators killed and five injured in the Tanjung Puting coastal waters crash, followed four days later by the Barito River crash that left an Indonesian landing officer missing, the human cost among flight crews highlights the acute physical risks confronting Indonesia’s disaster containment machinery as authorities struggle to suppress persistent hotspots.