Probe into SilkAir crash to continnue

Probe into SilkAir crash to continnue

SINGAPORE (AFP): An investigation into the crash of a Singapore plane that killed all 104 on board in Indonesia more than a year ago will continue throughout 1999, Communications Minister Mah Bow Tan said Wednesday.

The Indonesian Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission (AAIC) "expects that the investigation is likely to continue well into 1999," Mah said in a written reply to members of parliament.

"As I have explained to the House previously, investigation is progressing very slowly because of the high degree of destruction to the aircraft and the lack of useful information from the flight data and cockpit voice recorders," he said.

SilkAir MI I85 crashed in Palembang on the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Dec. 19, 1997.

Oetarjo Diran, head of the AAIC in Indonesia, told relatives of victims at a private briefing here last month that investigators had ruled out terrorism, weather, aircraft maintenance, hazardous materials and air traffic control problems as possible causes of the accident.

There has been speculation about suicide by one of the pilots as a likely cause of the crash and the investigators reiterated they could not dismiss any possibility until proven invalid.

Although investigators had managed to pick up 73 percent of the wreckage or 35 tons in weight, most of it was just fragments.

The investigation is also being supported by the United States National Transportation Safety Board, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, and the Australian Bureau of Air Safety Investigation.