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)