Driver killed in crash had planned earlier flight

Driver killed in crash had planned earlier flight

PERTH, Australia (AFP): An Australian rally driver killed in Indonesia's worst aviation disaster had promised last week to return to Australia on an earlier flight, a friend said yesterday.

Clive Slater, three times West Australian rally champion, was among 234 people killed when a Garuda Airbus A300 flight crashed on approach to Medan, North Sumatra, on Friday.

Slater had earlier promised the widow of his former navigator, Rod van der Straaten, that he would be a pall bearer at his funeral in Perth on the morning of the tragedy, Australia's rally legend Ross Dunkerton said.

Van der Straaten, who had driven with Slater for six years, died on Tuesday after a long illness.

"Clive was supposed to be pall bearer but he never showed up," Dunkerton, a six-times national rally champion, said from Rottnest Island, near Perth.

"It seems to be a bit of a vague area why he wasn't on an earlier flight. It looks like Garuda has postponed his flight."

Dunkerton said he had flown on the same scheduled service from Jakarta to Medan six days before the tragedy and had been frightened by the smoke haze from months of bushfires. He was in Medan to watch the World Rally Championship concluded on Sunday Sept. 21.

"We couldn't see the airstrip coming into Medan and I was thinking: I hope this bloke knows what he's doing," he said.

"Clive wasn't supposed to be on that plane but when your number's up, your number's up."

Slater, 45, of the Perth suburb of Claremont, traveled extensively throughout Asia as an advanced driving instructor on mine sites.

His wife, Barbara, and daughter Alana, 13, were expected to return to Perth yesterday after Alana competed in the Pacific Alliance Gymnastics Championships in Colorado.

Slater's body was to be transported back to Jakarta yesterday, but the thick haze forced the closing of Medan's airport and the transport was delayed.