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2005 Nias Island Sea King crash

2 Apr 2005 · Nias, Indonesia

Royal Australian Navy Westland Sea King · Mechanical failure due to poor maintenance

From an unrecorded airport to Nias, Indonesia

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Event

Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
Accident
Event fatalities
9 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
Unknown
Occupants
Unknown
Survivors
2
InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
2
OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
Military

Westland Sea King

Aircraft type
Westland SEA KING
Category
Helicopter · from aircraft type
RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
N16-100
Onboard fatalities
9
Route
From not recordedTo Nias, Indonesia

Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.

From the Wikipedia article

On 2 April 2005, a Royal Australian Navy Westland WS-61 Sea King helicopter (tail number N16-100, call sign "Shark 02") of 817 Squadron RAN crashed while approaching to land on a sports field located near the village of Tuindrao in the region of Amandraya on the Indonesian island of Nias, where it was due to provide humanitarian support to people affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. The aircraft had 11 personnel on board, of whom two survived the crash.

A Defence Board of Inquiry later found that the primary cause of the accident was a failure of the aircraft's flight control systems. This was as a result of a series of errors, and a general practice of poor maintenance on the aircraft.

Text from the Wikipedia article “2005 Nias Island Sea King crash” (revision 1375045832, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article

Sources

Wikipedia article: 2005 Nias Island Sea King crash
Article
2005 Nias Island Sea King crash
Revision
1375045832 · 2026-09-15 · retrieved 2026-09-18
Wikidata
Q4604680
Licence
Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
Record
Wikipedia article "2005 Nias Island Sea King crash" (page 1743345, revision 1375045832)
Date
Wikipedia infobox: date
Place and country
Wikipedia infobox: site
Map position
Wikipedia article coordinates
Aircraft, operator and route
Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
Operation
operator named as an armed force or military unit in the infobox
Fatalities
Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
Ground fatalities
not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
Summary
Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
  • Wikipedia · Facts from the Wikipedia article's infobox and coordinates, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.