Up in the air: How safe are our skies?

I. Christianto, Contributor, Jakarta

As crippled Garuda Indonesia Airlines flight 421 from Mataram to Yogyakarta was battered about in a storm over Central Java, many of the 61 passengers and seven crew must have thought they were experiencing their worst transportation nightmare.

News of the Boeing 737-300 ending up in its watery grave of the Bengawan Solo river, with one flight attendant dead and dozens of passengers injured, made front page headlines.

But the Garuda crash-landing on Jan. 16, later blamed on engine failure, came only two days after a Boeing 737-200 of Lion Airlines crash-landed immediately after taking off from Simpang Tiga Airport in Pekanbaru, Riau, injuring seven people.

Such incidents, particularly when they occur within the span of a week, cost airlines more than in the loss of life and repairs to damaged aircraft. Although air transportation still remains one of the safest forms of transportation, when planes do go down, the potential for the loss of a huge number of lives inevitably makes the incidents of intense public interest.

Nervous passengers, already shocked by the Sept. 11 incidents involving commercial airlines in the U.S., may now think twice about traveling by air in Indonesia.

After the dark years of the aviation industry at the height of the crisis in the late 1990s, the country has undergone an airline boom in the last two years. Liberalization of the policy on private airlines has resulted in the entrance of at least a dozen new airlines, some of them operating with one or two planes and serving remote routes, in addition to five already operating.

The number of airline passengers on domestic flights surged to 7.67 million passengers between January and September 2001, up 24.19 percent over the same period in 2000. The government expects domestic traffic to increase 20 percent annually.

The rapid expansion of the domestic industry here may be a hazard in itself. There is the problem of getting qualified pilots and adequate facilities and fleets. With more new players in the airline industry, passengers must be more concerned about maintenance of the fleet. There is also the role of the professionals in the control tower.

Chairman of the Indonesian Air Carrier Association (Inaca) Wahyu Hidayat said that pilot qualifications, fleet maintenance, and weather were the key factors in safety.

He argued air travel was the best transportation means because of the meticulous preparations before departure. The regulations for maintenance are complicated for safety reasons.

Regardless of the age of a plane, he added, as long as it were well maintained it would be suitable to fly.

"It's all about the cost of maintenance. Airlines will spend more to maintain old aircraft. So maintenance is important for safety. The government, as regulator, regularly inspects airlines to check on maintenance just for safety."

Inaca, he said, was setting up a special committee on safety to provide stronger safety measures for its 22 members, in addition to safety regulations set by the government.

Law on Flight No. 15/1992 regulates safety and security matters. There are also several government decrees and ministerial decrees regarding safety and security.

For international standards, Indonesia has to follow civil air safety regulations set by international bodies, such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Indonesia is rated as Category I, meaning the nation meets safety standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

However, the assessments are not an indication of whether individual carriers are safe or unsafe. Rather, they determine whether foreign civil aviation authorities are in place and the extent to which those authorities ensure that operational and safety procedures are observed by their air carriers.

The focus of the FAA's foreign assessment program is on the civil aviation authority, and not individual carriers. These civil authorities are assessed for their adherence to ICAO aviation safety standards, not FAA regulations.

But it is very difficult to say whether an airline is "safe" just by looking at ratings or its fatal accident statistics. Some argue that an airline's safety does not only depend on its services, but also on environmental factors (do the flights pass through mountainous terrain or inclement weather patterns, for instance?) and factors like airport security in cases of hijackings, bombing attempts and other matters.

Passengers are also advised to be aware throughout their flights, going through the safety procedures one more time and making sure that all the safety equipment (life jackets, etc.) are where they are supposed to be.

Speaking up may also make a difference. If other passengers obstruct the aisle with their carry-on luggage or use a cellphone during the flight, for instance, bring it to the attention of a flight attendant. In the unlikely event that something does go wrong, your awareness may make all the difference between getting out of the plane safely or becoming another fatal airline crash statistic.