Indonesia grounds six Adam Air planes
Source: Reuters
(Adds airline comment, details, changes dateline) By Heri Retnowati SURABAYA, Indonesia, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Indonesia's government has grounded budget carrier Adam Air's six Boeing 737-300 planes for safety checks after one of its aircraft cracked during a hard landing, officials said on Thursday. The Boeings, almost a third of the airline's fleet, will not fly until they have passed the safety inspection from the government, Adam Air safety director Hartono said. The Indonesian government has stepped up safety investigations since an Adam Air plane carrying 102 people disappeared in January. But the airline urged the Transport Ministry to review the decision, saying the cause of the accident was still being investigated. "The Adam Air management is surprised by the decision and views it as harsh punishment given to a national airline," the company said in a statement. The chief of the Indonesian transport safety committee, Setyo Rahardjo, told Reuters an investigation was still underway and he could not reveal results yet. All 148 passengers on the aircraft that made a hard landing on Wednesday were safe, but the accident prompted a temporary closure of Juanda Airport in Surabaya, Indonesia's second largest city and the capital of East Java province. The body of the plane was cracked through the middle of the passenger section, leaving the tail drooping towards the ground. On Jan. 1 an Adam Air Boeing 737-400 disappeared from radar screens during a domestic flight from Surabaya to Manado in the north of Sulawesi island. No bodies have been found from the plane, although some debris was recovered from the sea off South Sulawesi. That accident sparked widespread discussion of Indonesian aviation safety standards and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono set up a commission to investigate transport safety. Adam Air said Wednesday's incident was caused by strong wind amid heavy rain at the airport, and the plane, made in 1994, had undergone thorough checks before flying. The incident had prompted some passengers to cancel flights with the carrier, Elshinta radio reported. Adam Air, one of about a dozen budget airlines in the world's fourth most populous nation, operates 19 Boeing <BA.N> 737 jets. It serves dozens of domestic routes in Indonesia and also flies to Singapore. Air travel in Indonesia, home to 220 million people, has grown substantially since the liberalisation of the airline industry after the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s. (Additional reporting by Telly Nathalia)
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