Indonesian police question pilots in crash probe
Source: Reuters
By Mita Valina Liem JAKARTA, March 13 (Reuters) - Indonesian police on Tuesday questioned the pilots of an airliner that crash landed in central Java last week as a transport expert raised questions about rescue efforts. Garuda Indonesia flight GA200, which had 140 people on board, overshot the runway in Yogyakarta on Wednesday and burst into flames in a paddy field, killing 21 people including five Australians. The pilots escaped without major injuries, but aviation investigators have so far not been able to glean much information from them because of their traumatised state. The pilots showed up at the Yogyakarta police headquarters voluntarily, said police spokesman Budi Santoso. "They are available for questioning because they feel well, even though they are still a bit traumatised," Santoso said. Antara news agency quoted co-pilot Gagam Rahman as saying he was asked 10 questions, but did not elaborate. The cockpit voice recorder from the aircraft has been sent to the United States after Australian experts failed to retrieve crucial information. But Australian investigators said they had extracted flight data including the speed of the plane, its vertical acceleration, flap settings and wind speed. Wahyu Supriantono, chairman of the Indonesian Aircraft Technicians Association, questioned why so many people were killed, saying firefighters should have used halon instead of water when the flames were still small. "Why didn't they pay attention to how people tried to save the passengers? Why was the rescue not fast enough?" he told Reuters. "And the escape slides, if they had been operated, and had the cabin crew not been outside the plane, nobody had to die." Frans Wenas, a senior investigator from the National Transport and Safety Commission, said his team was investigating whether the failure to operate the slides was due to damage caused by the accident or "the cabin crew's carelessness". "Crews should exit only after all passengers have been evacuated, that is the rule," he said by telephone. But he said it was "too early to judge". "Who knows, parts of the plane were badly burnt and that made the crew leave the plane," he said. Indonesia has suffered a string of transport accidents in recent months. An Adam Air plane disappeared in January with 102 people on board and a ferry sank in December killing hundreds. A special team set up by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in January to review Indonesia's transport situation said on Monday that it had found that safety levels in the country have fallen since the deregulation of the sector. "Our safety level is low and this was caused by the 2001 (airline) deregulations. We found systemic weaknesses in funding and human resources," said the team's spokesman, Oetardjo Diran. Air travel in Indonesia, a country of more than 17,000 islands, has grown substantially since the liberalisation of the airline industry that has triggered price wars among airlines. (Additional reporting by Ahmad Pathoni)
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