FLIGHT FINDINGSAVIATION OCCURRENCE MAP
Back to map

Susi Air PK-VVQ

25 Apr 2012 · Tabang, Kutai Kartanegara

Pilatus PC-6 Porter · Accident

From Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman Sepinggan International Airport (BPN) to Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman Sepinggan International Airport (WALL)

Report a problem

Event

NTSB case
ENG12WA037
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
Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
Event fatalities
2 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
Unknown
Occupants
Unknown
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
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

Pilatus PC-6 Porter

Aircraft type
Pilatus PC-6
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-VVQ
Operator
Susi Air
Onboard fatalities
2
Route
From Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman Sepinggan International Airport (BPN)To Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman Sepinggan International Airport (WALL), Balikpapan,
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
Not recorded
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
Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
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
Fuel exhaustion
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

No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

From the Wikipedia article

Susi Air PK VVQ was an aircraft belonging to Susi Air that crashed while conducting a survey in Melak District, West Kutai Regency, and aerial photography of land areas in the Kutai Kartanegara Regency region on 25 April 2012. The aircraft departed from Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman Airport, Balikpapan, at 12:41 WITA and lost contact with Melak Airfield, West Kutai, on Wednesday at 17:10 WITA. The crash killed the pilot, a South African citizen, and the cameraman, an Australian citizen. The bodies of both victims of the plane crash were successfully evacuated by a joint SAR team made up of police officers, the Indonesian National Armed Forces and local residents.

Translated into English with AI assistance from the Indonesian Wikipedia article “Susi Air PK-VVQ” (revision 24467843, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article

NTSB narrative

On April 25, 2012, at 09:29 UTC time, a Pilatus PC-6/B2-H4, PK-VVQ, operated by Susi Air, impacted terrain near Muaritan after the pilot reported a fuel system problem.The accident is being investigated by the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC). The NTSB has appointed an accredited representative to assist the NTSC's investigation as the state of design of certain fuel system components.

All inquiries should be directed to:

National Transportation Safety Committee Ministry of Transportation Building 3rd Floor Jl. Medan Merdeka Timur No.5 Jakarta, Indonesia +62 21 3517606 www.dephub.go.id/knkt

Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset

Sources

Indonesian Wikipedia article: Susi Air PK-VVQ
Article
Susi Air PK-VVQ
Translation
Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
Revision
24467843 · 2023-10-07 · retrieved 2026-09-19
Wikidata
Q12518200
Licence
Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record ENG12WA037
Event ID
20130104X75253
Case number
ENG12WA037
Dataset
full-current
Source SHA-256
5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
Record
id Wikipedia article "Susi Air PK-VVQ" (page 899243, revision 24467843), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case ENG12WA037 (events / aircraft)
Date
Wikipedia infobox: date
Place and country
Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record ENG12WA037
Map position
NTSB record ENG12WA037: NTSB API eventLatitude/eventLongitude
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 ENG12WA037
Operation
operator is an airline according to Wikidata
Fatalities
Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
Ground fatalities
Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
Summary
Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (2)
  • One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Susi Air PK-VVQ" and NTSB case ENG12WA037, 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.
  • Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.