SilkAir crash victims to be buried today
SilkAir crash victims to be buried today
JAKARTA (JP): The remains of 101 victims of the SilkAir Boeing
737-300 which plunged into the Musi River, South Sumatra, last
month will be given a mass burial in the provincial capital of
Palembang today.
The commander of the Palembang Air Force Base, Lt. Col.
Yanuwardi told The Jakarta Post by telephone yesterday that
preparations have been completed at the site in Kebun Bunga
district.
"The burial will take place during a ceremony at the site at
11 a.m.," Yanuwardi said.
He said the funeral will be attended by Singaporean
Communications Minister Mah Bow Tan, Minister of Transportation
Haryanto Dhanutirto, SilkAir officials and hundreds of relatives
of the crash victims.
The 101 prepared coffins will be mostly empty and the ceremony
will be more symbolic in nature as few remains of the 104
passengers and crew members on board were found.
Antara news agency reported yesterday that three of the six
identified victims -- Lucas Leo Dreesbach of Germany, Michel
Sarthou of France and Kathryn Marie Aguirre Worth of the United
States -- will be buried in their respective countries.
The other three -- Seet Cher Pheng of Singapore, Choo Choon
Kiat of Malaysia, and Suzan Picariello of the United States --
will be buried in Palembang, along with the 98 unidentified
victims.
Yanuwardi said the investigating forensic team handed over the
remains of the victims to Palembang's mayor and SilkAir officials
at a ceremony at a Pelita Air Service hangar at Sultan Mahmud
Badaruddin II Airport yesterday.
The 10-month-old plane crashed during a regular flight from
Jakarta to Singapore. SilkAir is a subsidiary of Singapore
Airlines that operates short-range flights around Southeast Asia.
About half of the plane's parts have been recovered, all in
small pieces.
Both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder
have been found and sent to the United States for analysis to
help determine why the plane fell out of the sky without sending
any distress calls.
The Silkair crash has attracted extra attention because it
occurred while the plane was at cruising altitude --
statistically the safest portion of a flight.
Aviation Week cast doubt last week on previous reports that
the plane was in clear weather, however.
It said a Qantas Boeing 747 flying a little higher and about
five minutes behind the SilkAir plane had to make a diversion
around a heavy thunderstorm at the crash location. (10)