A new name after the crash

PT Dirgantara Indonesia is the company B. J. Habibie built as IPTN, under a new name. The 1997 Asian financial crisis and the IMF rescue that followed halted IPTN’s N250 turboprop and its proposed N2130 jet airliner, and left the Bandung plant with too many people and too little work. On 24 August 2000 President Abdurrahman Wahid inaugurated the company in Bandung as PT Dirgantara Indonesia, Indonesian Aerospace in English. Its roots go back much further, to an air force workshop of 1946 and to Nurtanio Pringgoadisurjo’s Sikumbang, the first all-metal Indonesian aircraft, which flew in 1954.

From 9,670 to 3,720

Survival meant shrinking. Eighteen business divisions were folded into five: aircraft, aircraft services, aerostructures, defence and engineering services. By 2004 the payroll had been cut from 9,670 to 3,720. The laid-off workers fought back over their severance, and in 2007 a commercial court declared the state company bankrupt, a ruling the Supreme Court quashed. In July 2011 the government injected Rp 2 trillion, about $234 million, to keep the debt-laden firm afloat.

Transports for the archipelago and beyond

The bread and butter was the CN235, the twin-turboprop transport IPTN had designed with Spain’s CASA in the 1980s. PTDI kept building it for the Indonesian forces and for export, delivering four to South Korea in early 2012, and later added maritime patrol versions and the stretched CN235 NG. It also assembles the larger C295 as the CN295, the NC212 light transport and, under licence, helicopters from Bell and Airbus, including Super Pumas and H225M parts. Its aerostructures shop makes wing components for the Boeing 737 and 767 and for Airbus jets from the A320 to the A350.

The N219 Nurtanio

PTDI’s own design is the N219, a 19-seat twin-turboprop meant for short, rough strips in remote areas. It first flew on 16 August 2017 and was certified by Indonesia’s civil aviation authority in December 2020. It carries the name Nurtanio, after the pioneer whose name IPTN had dropped in 1985. A 50-seat follow-on, the N245, has been designed but not built.

Fighters, drones and a move to Kertajati

Indonesia joined South Korea’s KF-X fighter programme, now the KAI KF-21 Boramae, with PTDI as a system integrator and an original 20 per cent government share of the development cost, and PTDI is developing the Elang Hitam medium-altitude drone. In January 2022 the government transferred its majority shareholding to the state electronics firm Len Industri as part of a defence holding. A memorandum signed on 15 July 2026 plans to move PTDI’s main manufacturing from Bandung to a new site at Kertajati International Airport from August 2026.

工場

• Bandung complex · Bandung, West Java — Main plant, 86.98 hectares
• Kertajati Aerospace Industrial Hub (planned) · Kertajati International Airport, Majalengka, West Java — Relocation from August 2026 on 150–200 hectares

人々

• B. J. Habibie · founding president of IPTN, 1976–1998 — Later president of Indonesia
• Jusman Syafii Djamal · president director 2000–2002
• Budi Santoso · president director 2007–2017
• Gita Amperiawan · president director since 2022
• Nurtanio Pringgoadisurjo · aviation pioneer (died 1966) — Designed the Sikumbang; the N219 is named after him

記録と初記録

• Only aircraft manufacturer in South-East Asia, by its own description