Silk Air insurer files lawsuit against Boeing

Silk Air insurer files lawsuit against Boeing

NEW YORK (Dow Jones): The insurer of a Silk Air jetliner that crashed in Indonesia in 1997, killing all 104 people aboard, filed a lawsuit Friday blaming the aircraft's manufacturer, Boeing Co. (BA), for a defect in the Boeing 737's design.

Singapore Aviation & General Insurance Co. claims in the complaint filed in Manhattan federal court that the jet went down as a result of either a defective rudder control mechanism, or a defect in the design of its head/galley area that "permitted water to enter an electronics bay causing a malfunction."

The insurer seeks to recover the $35 million payment it made to affiliates of the airline for the value of the aircraft.

A Boeing spokesman couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Indonesian officials recently completed an investigation of the Silk Air crash, issuing a report that said no cause could be determined. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, however, has reportedly criticized the Indonesian investigation, saying the crash was probably caused by the jet's captain.

A report in Friday's Washington Post says the U.S. believes the pilot was in serious financial trouble and had experienced several run-ins with the airline's management.

Singapore Aviation's suit also names several other companies it says were responsible for the aircraft's parts, including Parker Hannifin Corp. (PH) and Honeywell International Inc. (HON) Silk Air is a unit of Singapore Airlines Ltd.

Meanwhile a Singapore government-linked newspaper on Saturday claimed conclusions by U.S. aviation investigators that pilot suicide probably caused a 1997 SilkAir crash was likely biased because the airplane was made by U.S. company Boeing Co.

The Straits Times said in an editorial that this month's U.S. National Transportation Safety Board report raised questions about "nationalistic bias."

The nearly new Boeing 737-300 crashed into an Indonesian river on Dec. 19, 1997, killing all 104 people aboard. The Singapore- bound flight plunged into the river from 10,700 meters shortly after leaving Jakarta.

Both the U.S. report and a separate Indonesian report concluded that the voice and data recorders in the cockpit were turned off minutes before the crash and that the plane's stabilizer was inexplicably set to dive.

But the U.S. aviation board said the Indonesians failed to analyze personal information about the Singaporean pilot, Tsu Way Ming, that may have shed light on the crash. It noted Tsu had significant debts from playing the stock market and that he had been reprimanded by airline management several times in the weeks before the crash.

Indonesian and Singaporean authorities said they conducted thorough investigations of Tsu's personal life and that he was not suicidal.

After nearly three years and 30,000 man hours, the final Indonesian report said investigators were unable to determine the cause "due to the highly fragmented wreckage and the nearly total lack of useful data, information and evidence."