Airbus Industrie team set to leave crash site
Airbus Industrie team set to leave crash site
MEDAN, North Sumatra (JP): Airbus Industrie's air safety
investigation team will leave the country today after helping
Indonesian workers over the past three weeks search for the
cockpit voice recorder of the ill-fated Garuda Indonesia Airbus
A-300-B4.
"Those colleagues from Airbus Industrie have been working very
hard in assisting us search for the black box," said Oetarjo
Diran, the head of the Ministry of Transportation's search team.
"Although team members from England and Australia are leaving,
the search for the black box will continue," Oetarjo told Antara
here Monday night.
It is hoped the voice recorder, once found, will shed light on
the cause of the crash of Airbus A-300-B4 in Buah Nabar on Sept.
26, killing all 234 people on board.
Oetarjo said help which had been given by the Airbus Industrie
team, including the latest type of detector said to be effective
in recovering metal objects buried in mud, was proof that the
international aviation community also wished to draw a lesson
from the tragic disaster.
International aviation circles, he added, felt that the Garuda
Airbus crash was a major disaster and unique in terms of the
field configuration, number of people killed and the crash site,
which is in a densely forested valley.
Oetarjo said he did not overlook the moral and material help
given by the local people, such as hoes and baskets to dig out
pieces of the aircraft buried in the mud and carry them away.
"What's important is to understand why and how the accident
happened. Not to seek who's to blame," he said.
"This is why we must not lose spirit in the search for the
black box and we still need help from various parties, the Armed
Forces, the government and local communities."
Head of the provincial transportation office, Ashwin Harahap,
dismissed speculation that the black box had been found and was
hidden by some people to obscure evidence.
"That's not true. It's not hidden. It's still hasn't been
found," he said after a ceremony to return teenagers Siswandi
Simatupang and Chrismanto Manurung to their parents after they
stowed away on a flight from Medan to Jakarta by hiding inside an
airplane's landing gear compartment.
Harahap also dismissed yet another speculation that the black
box never existed in the first place, which was why the search
had proven so futile. "The handle of the black box has already
been found," he said.
Harahap said that search efforts would continue. (21/33)