Nusantara Buana Air Flight 823
CASA C-212-200 Aviocar · Controlled flight into terrain due to loss of situational awareness
From Soewondo Air Force Base (MES) to Alas Leuser Airport (LSR)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA11WA108
- 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
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Final · National Transportation Safety Committee final report
- Event fatalities
- 18 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 18
- Survivors
- 0
- 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
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- 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
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
CASA C-212-200 Aviocar
- Aircraft type
- Casa C-212
- Category
- Airplane
- 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
- PK-TLF
- Operator
- Nusantara Buana Air
- Onboard fatalities
- 18
- Route
- From Soewondo Air Force Base (MES)To Alas Leuser Airport (LSR)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Non-U.S., Commercial
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Unknown or undetermined
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Nusantara Buana Air Flight 823 was a non-scheduled domestic passenger flight operated by a CASA C-212 Aviocar from Medan to Kutacane, Indonesia, that on 29 September 2011 crashed in the jungle, killing all 18 people on board.
The following investigation by the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee found that at the time of the accident the aircraft was flying in cloud, and the crew lost visual contact with the ground. The accident was classified as a controlled flight into terrain (CFIT).
Investigation and cause
Investigation
From analysis of the cockpit voice recorder, the National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) concluded that the crew elected to continue flying into weather that was below VFR minima – that is, the minimum visibility and distance from cloud required to fly in accordance with visual flight rules, as the accident flight had planned to do.
The crew subsequently lost situational awareness until the aircraft impacted a mountainside, without any action being taken by the crew to avoid the impact. The report noted that the crew had not received CFIT-specific training nor the Approach and Landing Accident Reduction (ALAR) training.
Following the loss of Flight 823, Nusantara Buana Air took a number of safety measures, emphasizing the importance of maintaining visual meteorological conditions during VFR flights. The NTSC was satisfied that such measures were adequate, but issued further safety recommendations to the Indonesian Directorate General Civil Aviation to improve supervision of operators and the provision of CFIT and ALAR training to pilots.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Nusantara Buana Air Flight 823” (revision 1339305346, 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
NTSB narrative
The National Transportation Safety Committee of Indonesia (KNKT) has notified the NTSB of an accident involving a Aviocar CASA C212 that occurred on September 29, 2011. The NTSB has appointed a U.S. Accredited Representative to assist the KNKT investigation under the provisions of ICAO Annex 13 as the State of Manufacturer and Design of the engines.
All investigative information will be released by the KNKT.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Nusantara Buana Air Flight 823
- Revision
- 1339305346 · 2026-02-19 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q4207401
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA11WA108
- Event ID
- 20111005X90411
- Case number
- DCA11WA108
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Nusantara Buana Air Flight 823" (page 33329433, revision 1339305346); merged with NTSB case DCA11WA108 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date; matches the National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC / KNKT), Ministry of Transportation, Republic of Indonesia final report
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates; matches the National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC / KNKT), Ministry of Transportation, Republic of Indonesia final report
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record DCA11WA108
- Operation
- flight number in the article title
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities; matches the National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC / KNKT), Ministry of Transportation, Republic of Indonesia final report
- Ground fatalities
- National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC / KNKT), Ministry of Transportation, Republic of Indonesia final report
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Nusantara Buana Air Flight 823" and NTSB case DCA11WA108, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.
- Checked against the National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC / KNKT), Ministry of Transportation, Republic of Indonesia final report on 2026-09-18. The report states the same date, crash-site coordinates, fatalities, registration, operator, departure, destination and damage. Taken from the report: ground fatalities. Not checked: place, flight number, aircraft type and type of operation.