'The Post', IPTN to seek out-of-court settlement

JAKARTA (JP): The Jakarta Post and the state-owned aircraft maker IPTN agreed in principle yesterday to seek an out of court settlement of their dispute over a recent plane crash report, their lawyers said yesterday.

After a two-hour meeting, the lawyers said they needed one day to discuss the agreement with their clients before they continued negotiating tomorrow.

IPTN's chief lawyer Adnan Buyung Nasution said that there is a "very strong spirit" to seek a fair settlement out of court. "This spirit has overcome all our emotions," he told a press conference after the meeting.

They said that they have yet to work out the details of the settlement.

"The main point is to restore (IPTN's) good name in the eyes of both domestic and foreign potential buyers," Nasution said.

The Post's chief lawyer, T. Mulya Lubis, said yesterday's meeting had proceeded in a "very constructive atmosphere".

"Although several issues will be discussed again, I believe these remaining differences can be resolved," he said.

The military version CN-235 airplane, built by IPTN, crashed while conducting a test to parachute-drop a four-ton cargo at Gorda Serang airbase in West Java on May 22. All six people, including an American instructor, aboard the airplane died in the crash.

The Post reported in its May 23rd edition, by quoting unnamed source at IPTN, that fire was seen billowing from the fuselage of the plane before it crashed.

It also reported that there were indications that one of the plane's propellers had broken before the fire started.

IPTN president B.J. Habibie, also the state minister of research and technology, has denied the report and supported his claim with a video recording of the crash.

"It was completely wrong to suggest that a propeller had broken and that a fire had broken out before it crashed," Habibie said the day after the crash.

A military team of investigators has found that the crash was caused by human error and there was nothing wrong with the airplane.

"The rope which was connected to a parachute and was supposed to hold the cargo broke suddenly when the pilot was about to drop it," the chief of the Ministry of Defense and Security's team, Lt. Col. Syarki Puteh, said last week.

IPTN has dismissed the Post's correction and apology for its report in its May 24 edition as "inadequate". It has demanded that the paper apologize in local and international newspapers which it will name.

The Bandung-based company claimed that, despite the May 24 correction and apology, the Post's report could ruin its chances of winning contracts in several countries.

"We do not want this report to be exploited by our competitors to discredit IPTN," Nasution said.

"There was give and take in the negotiation... and we do not want to kill the Post," Nasution said.

Nasution denied that his client had decided to ask the newspaper for a certain amount of compensation.

"It is too early, IPTN has not counted its loss," Nasution said. (06)