Public asked to be patient over crash

JAKARTA (JP): The government called on the public yesterday not to draw their own conclusions into the cause of Friday's Garuda Indonesia crash, and wait for the findings of the on-going official investigation.

President Soeharto was quoted as saying that the public must be patient as investigators continue their probe into the crash.

Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto after meeting with Soeharto yesterday, said the President had also instructed the investigation team to follow official procedures.

"I hope people will not make their own conclusions as investigators may need between three and eight months to carry out their task," Haryanto said.

His remarks come amid speculation that the accident which killed all 234 people on board the plane might have been caused by human error.

It has also been fueled further by a widely circulated transcript of the supposed last radio exchange between the Polonia Airport control tower and the pilot of the ill-fated GA- 152 flight.

The plane crashed minutes before it was due to land at Polonia Airport in Medan, North Sumatra.

Haryanto, who just returned from Medan Monday night, said the government would carefully look into the widely circulated transcript.

"This transcript must be studied, we must check who spoke, and whether they really said that. This is not as easy as people might imagine," Haryanto remarked.

The two-page transcript supports suggestions that there was some confusion between the pilot and the control tower.

There has still been no confirmation on the validity of the transcript and no one has come out to say who circulated it.

"I will only depend on the official investigation results," Haryanto remarked.

The minister warned people not to expect quick results from the investigation.

He noted that the government had not even announced the findings of an April crash of a Merpati plane on Belitung Island, South Sumatra which killed 15 people.

Meanwhile in Medan, an official at Polonia Airport's air traffic control expressed some doubt over the validity of the disputed transcript.

"Who knows, the transcript could have been made up by somebody," Jisman Silalahi, head of Polonia Airport's air traffic operation division, told The Jakarta Post yesterday.

But he claimed that he had not read the supposed transcript. "I am busy accompanying the investigation team," he replied.

He brushed aside the transcript saying people should not speculate, but should wait for results by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission (AAIC)

The commission is headed by Oetardjo Diran and has 22 members.

Diran is a well-recognized aviation expert who is a former head of the aerodynamics theory division of German aviation company Messerschmidt-Bolkow-Blohm.

Further doubt over the transcript came from Firdaus, a public relations officer of Polonia Airport administrator Angkasa Pura.

"We didn't issue the transcript," he said adding that an officially issued transcript would bear the stamp and signature of relevant officials.

Jisman said that the investigation team had "isolated" the air traffic controllers in Polonia who were on duty that afternoon.

"The investigation team has also questioned me," he said.

He added that the investigation team had also probed into the possibility of instrument malfunction at the control tower.

Separately, Jisman was quoted by Antara as saying that some of the air traffic controllers had been given leave.

"Thus far there are no air traffic controllers who have been declared nonactive, but permission of leave has been granted to some of those controllers to allow them to rest," he said.

According to Jisman the best way to confirm the transcript would be to verify it with the flight data recorder and the voice cockpit recorder, known as the black box.

Up until yesterday, the black box had not yet been found.

"We are still looking for it," North Sumatra Police spokesman Lt. Col. Amrin Karim said at his office in Medan.

He also said the search and rescue team had been strengthened with the deployment of two Mobile Brigade platoons.

Amrin denied that police had been interrogating Polonia air traffic controllers.

"The investigation is the Ministry of Transportation's authority," Amrin said adding that police were focusing their efforts on finding the black box.

Medan Police also officially detained yesterday 32 looters from the crash site.

They had allegedly stolen items from crash victims, such as wristwatches, bags, shoes, a roller skate and a shirt containing S$131.

Garuda has temporarily halted its Airbus fleet servicing the Jakarta-Medan-Jakarta route. The Airbus fleet will be undergoing technical inspection in Jakarta.

An MD-11 plane took off yesterday from Medan to Jakarta in place of the grounded Airbus.

In a related development, Japanese sources here said that relatives of the six Japanese passengers killed in the accident would likely not agree to the Rp 40 million (US$13,560) being paid out by state-owned Jasa Raharja insurance company.

"I don't think the families will agree to such an amount, because in Japan they would receive more from the airlines," said the Japanese source who asked for anonymity.

Relatives of three Japanese passengers killed in an air crash in Medan in April 1987 sued Garuda at a Tokyo district court for a total 394 million yen (US$3.4 million) in damages.

"If I'm not mistaken they reached an out-of-court settlement," said the source. (10/21/prb)