Government to finance Lion crash probe

Government to finance Lion crash probe

Kurniawan Hari and Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The government has rejected Lion Air's offer to help finance an
investigation into last week's fatal accident involving one of
its airliners in Surakarta, Central Java, which killed 26 people.

"We will not accept any money from Lion Air for the
investigation in order to ensure its integrity and objectivity,"
Minister of Transportation Hatta Rajasa told journalists at the
House of Representatives on Wednesday.

He said airlines companies used to make "donations" to
government-sponsored investigations into plane crashes by the
National Commission on Transportation Safety (KNKT).

But starting this year, the government would independently
finance such investigations using funds from the State Budget,
Hatta said.

He declined to say how much the investigation into the fatal
Lion Air accident at Adi Sumarmo Airport, Surakarta, on Nov. 30,
would cost.

The KNKT says it needs more money to fund the investigation.

Commission chairman Setyo Rahardjo said his team had allocated
between US$8,000 and US$10,000 for the sending of the ill-fated
plane's black box to the United States for examination.

"We need more money to finance the rest of the investigation,"
he was quoted by Antara as saying.

Separately, Lion Air spokesman Hasyim Arsal Alhabsi denied his
company had offered the government money to help finance the
probe.

"We have made no such offer. If the opposite was the case, the
investigation could end up being biased," he told The Jakarta
Post on Wednesday..

Hasyim said the investigation into the Lion Air plane crash
was the government's responsibility and that his company would
not do anything that could be considered as an attempt to
influence it.

Minister Hatta further said that it would take years for the
authorities to finish the probe into the accident, which
transportation officials and Lion Air have blamed on bad weather.

A total of 23 of some 150 passengers died and dozens of others
were injured when the plane skidded off a slippery runway at
Surakarta airport and slammed into a graveyard during heavy rain.

Citing an example of how long air accident investigations
took, Hatta said that the final report on a 1997 accident
involving a Garuda Indonesia plane at Sibolga, Medan, North
Sumatra, had just been finished last month.

And, an investigation into another crash involving a Garuda plane, which
made an emergency landing in the Bengawan Solo river two years
ago, had yet to be completed, the minister added.

Speaking during a hearing with the House's transportation
commission, Hatta reiterated his order to all relevant agencies
and institutions to improve flight security and safety.

The instruction was sent to the air transportation director,
the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency, the National Search and
Rescue Bureau, airport managers, air traffic control centers, and
airlines.

Responding to a call from the National Awakening Party (PKB)
faction in the House for Hatta to resign as an expression of
acceptance of moral responsibility for the fatal crash, Hatta
said he considered this to be a form of constructive criticism.

PKB faction legislator Erman Suparno said the new
transportation minister should step down as several other
accidents had occurred so far during the new government's watch.

Apart from the fatal accident in Surakarta, in which a senior
PKB legislator was among the dead, at least two other planes have
also skidded off the runway in Makassar, South Sulawesi.

No injuries were reported in the two accidents, however.