Indonesia Defends Record Of Downed Plane

Indonesia's military insisted Thursday that a C-130 Hercules plane that crashed and killed nearly 100 people was in good condition, passing a flight test the day before it caught fire and nose-dived into a residential neighborhood.

The accident Wednesday, during clear weather and while pilots were communicating with air traffic control, has put a spotlight on the country's beleaguered air force, including complaints that it has trouble getting spare parts for its aging fleet.

Survivors said they heard at least two loud explosions and felt the transport plane wobbling from left to right as it plummeted to the ground, losing its right wing as it hit some trees and then slamming into a row of houses.

It skidded 700 yards before erupting in flames in a rice field.

Air force official Bambang Samoedra said at least 99 people were killed, including 11 crew and two villagers on the ground, and that 15 others were injured.

"People were screaming hysterically as the plane was going down. We were being thrown around all over the place," Pvt. Saputra told Internet news portal Detik.com. "Then it just blew up and I found myself lying in a field, 20 yards from the wreckage. I couldn't stand up and some villagers came to help me."

"Fire was rising up to the sky," said Saputra, who suffered head and arm injuries. "I just submitted myself to God."

Indonesia's airforce, long underfunded and handicapped by a recently lifted U.S. ban on weapons sales, has suffered a string of plane crashes.

Just last week another C-130 lost its landing gear and slammed into a house, injuring four people, and 24 were killed when a Fokker 27 crashed into an airport hangar last month during a training mission.

Kalla is running against Yudhoyono for president this July and said that, if elected, he would boost the funding.

Samoedra, the air force official, insisted that while nearly three decades old, the military transport plane that crashed Wednesday was in good condition, passing both a maintainance and flight check earlier this week.

The weather was clear, he said, and the pilots had contact with air traffic control during their approach and didn't indicate any problems.

"We're still investigating," he told reporters Thursday. When asked if human error might be to blame, he said "we don't want to speculate."

The air force has experienced an exodus of experienced transport pilots in recent years, as they sought to join the rapidly expanding network of low-cost airlines formed after the industry was deregulated.

The air force's fleet is old and underfunded.

It has operated C-130s - the backbone of its transport wing - since the early 1960s, when it received a batch of 10 from the United States in exchange for the release of a CIA bomber pilot shot down in 1958 while supporting an anti-government mutiny.

About 40 more were delivered over the next 20 years, many secondhand and provided by Washington before the Clinton administration imposed sanctions on military deliveries because of violence that broke out during East Timor's 1999 break for independence.

The air force complained that many of the planes quickly became unserviceable because of the lack of spare parts. Though the embargo was lifted several years ago, the air worthiness of many remained in question.

The plane that crashed Wednesday was carrying at least 110 passengers and crew when it went down in Geplak village, 325 miles east of the capital, Jakarta.