Yogyakarta, 1970

   The only incident or "mishap" that I got involved in while serving as an Air Force pilot happened during the period I was still being assigned as a flight instructor at the Air Force Flying School in Yogyakarta, Central Java. It could be regarded as a "Believe It or Not" case. In fact, it was also a "Well Done" job for me, because at least I had been able to save an airplane from the possibility of its total loss (total destruction) and above all, the life of its two pilots, myself and my student.

   It was a nice, clear day at Adisutjipto airbase, our home base for training, when my student and I took off for a round-robin, low-level cross-country flight exercise covering an area within a radius of approx. 100 km from the airbase.  The trainer plane that we were using was a T-41D single-engine, four-seater, high-wing monoplane basic trainer, the military version of the well-known Cessna 172, that entered our Air Force inventory only a few months earlier.

   The entire flight exercise was planned to be carried out at almost treetop level, i.e. just several feet above the average treetop heights along the route. During the first two legs of the exercise, everything seemed to be running smoothly according to the plan. On the third leg before the last one, we had to take special precautions for not allowing ourselves to fly overhead past the Kings Cemetery complex located in Imogiri, a village about 30 km south of Yogyakarta. The complex itself was the cemetery of the Sultans of Yogyakarta as well as the Sunans of Surakarta and was known to be a sacred place for the Javanese people, especially those from Yogyakarta and Solo (Surakarta).

   Unfortunately, my own curiosity and perhaps of my student's as well had predominated our desire to disobey the warning and instead, we tried at the last moment to fly somewhat close to the cemetery complex. As far as I could remember, the view from above at a rather closer range was so exciting in that the cemetery itself was located on top of a hill which could only be reached by climbing up past a very lengthy, elongated stairs.

When we finished the flight along this leg, we then made a left turn at our last turning point to enter our final leg which would lead us back towards our home base. So far, the plane had still remained under my student's control and I'd never interfere with him as long as he was able to cope with all the necessary flight procedures.

   During the last leg we would gradually climb up and sufficient engine power was required to fly the plane past a mountain range stretching across our flight route. While my student was advancing power to almost its full extent, a sudden change to the engine response turned up. I was then shocked upon realizing the fact that we'd had an emergency. The engine had suddenly produced such a loud noise while a considerable loss of engine power was felt and simultaneously a large amount of engine oil were spouting from inside the engine compartment splashing the windshield of the plane. It was really terrible as far as I could remember those moments of suspense.

   I took over control from my student right away and instructed him to scan the instruments more frequently while I was concentrating on controlling the plane. I immediately reported the situation by radio to Adisutjipto Control Tower while at the same time checking the instruments' reading as required. As an instructor, I was occupying the right front seat and I could clearly observe the oil continuously splashing the windshield immediately in front of me, causing my forward vision to be almost completely obstructed by this situation.

   Realizing the fact that we were above a mountainous area and right down below us was only a vast range of dense forest, I tried my best to find some suitable clearing within where a controllable safe emergency landing could be made instead of an undesired, unavoided crash landing. Since I could look outside the plane only through my rightside door window, I continued to keep the plane at its safe flying speed while performing a sustained right turn.

I remained calm as far as I could and eventually I remembered there was an alternate airstrip somewhere nearby and while continuously turning, tried to determine its location visually. I only feared that the engine was going to "quit" (stop running) at any moment due to complete loss of oil.

   At last I was then able to locate the airstrip even from a distant range since the horizontal visibility was quite excellent. Without waiting another minute, I immediately brought the nose of the plane to a heading corresponding to the location of the airstrip and hopefully would take us directly there on time. I then planned the approach so as to be able to intercept the correct approach path in almost no time while notifying by radio to Adisutjipto Control Tower that I was on an approach to make a safety landing at Gading airstrip.

   The landing was done uneventfully using full flaps and at a steeper-than-normal glide path, because I found out there was some potential hazard of a high coconut-tree obstructing the plane on its "short final" approach path to the airstrip. After touching down I had time enough to taxi the plane off the landing ground before shutting down the engine in a normal way. We got off the plane right away and before realizing that we were actually safe and sound, there were already quite a few people from around the area coming down to see us, because they apparently knew what had happened to our plane due to its abnormal noise coming out from the engine while in flight. And of course, they were curious to know what really happened and who was piloting the plane....

   Another airplane on the same exercise that was trailing behind our plane a few minutes later was instructed to fly overhead and circle around Gading airstrip to locate our position on the ground. I reported by radio to the pilot-in-

command (flight instructor) that we had landed safely and needed only maintenance personnel backup in order to fix the plane's troubled engine. Not more than an hour later, the airplane had returned and landed safely on the airstrip with the technicians on board the plane. After getting off the plane, the technicians started to work at once on the troubled engine.

   After quite a while they discovered that one of the engine cylinders was badly damaged with a big hole on it, causing the engine oil to leak considerably. The defect had actually been observed during the period the plane was still at its early stages of use, because it continually showed some conditions of "underpowered" as compared to the other planes. But perhaps the real trouble was never detected in advance by our technicians, because the resulting hole was just found at a hidden portion of the cylinder mounting normally not quite visible to them. Furthermore, they also found too many metal debris inside of the cylinder and therefore they came into conclusion that the corresponding defective cylinder should be replaced at once.

   I took the report with me to Adisutjipto airbase when I joined the other plane flying back towards the airbase. I was met by another fellow instructor right after landing who had this comment to say:

   "Well, you seemed to have disobeyed the rules while flying so low within the vicinity of the Kings Cemetery in Imogiri, didn't you?"

This guy was a native born of Yogyakarta, so I presumed I had to agree with him to a certain aspect. I realize that my own wife was also a descendant of the Sultans of Yogyakarta, so I should've taken it into account for that reason.

   Believe it or not!

Bonus:
Prominent Figures

   A Chinese businessman from Semarang, Central Java, who was a travel agent, intended to apply for a new location for his office branch in Yogyakarta. He visited the tourism service center in Yogyakarta, where he was being inquired into meeting some of the requirements that was set up by the local government, including his general knowledge on Yogyakarta.

   The following dialogue began with the official-in-charge at the center questioning him in English:

   "Mr. Chan, could you please tell me at least three prominent figures in Yogyakarta that you know of...."

   "Figures? I would say, TWO, THREE, and FOUR... because it's pretty well-known through the existence of 'Dji-Sam-Soe'..., isn't it?" answered Mr. Chan fluently and confidently.

   "Oh no, no, Mr. Chan... I don't mean numbers but persons, in this case, Sri Sultan, Sri Paku Alam, and ...", he paused to think for a while.

   "Well, the third one must be... Sri Maryati, that charming TV reporter...," Mr. Chan implied cheerfully.

   "???"

Note:
"Dji-Sam-Soe", pronounced as "Jee-Some-Sue", means 2-3-4 (in Chinese), is one of the popular "kretek" cigarette brands in Indonesia, while Sri Maryati is a woman television news presenter of the TVRI in the '70s.