Public asked to be patient over crash
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)