Indonesia is due to announce this week the results of an airlines audit. The Government is under pressure to improve air safety after the accidents of recent months. One of the preliminary recommendations was for the Transport Ministry to remove the air operations certificates of the lowest performers. However that will be hard to make stick if the recent Garuda accident is sheeted home to pilot error - as seems likely on data released thus far. Garuda is Indonesia's national flag carrier. That might explain why the director general of Civil Aviation now says airlines will be rated and those in the unsafe category will be given time to improve before they are suspended. Budhi Muliawan Suyitno said: "There will be stages, a warning stage, a suspension stage and a closure stage," However he did not say how much time warned airlines would be given to improve their standards.

There is thus far also no clear indication that the cost of recovering the missing AdamAir 737 flight recorders will be funded. If that vital step in the investigation is skipped, then the cause of that crash will remain undetermined.

THE Dutch NLR Air Transport Safety Institute reports that since 1997, 44 commercial operations in Indonesia have resulted in an accident and the deaths of over 700 persons. NLR-ATSI also reports that the chance of an accident with an Indonesian airline company is approximately 3 times higher than the worldwide average. A more remarkable finding is that in almost 40% of the 44 accidents since 1997 the aircraft accident occurred during takeoff or landing. Worldwide this happens on average in just 18% of all accidents. The Institute also reports that since deregulation the number of low-cost airlines in Indonesia has trebled. The rapid growth has raised questions over whether safety has been compromised and if the infrastructure and personnel can cope with the huge increase.