Japan's Air Crash Investigators to Look into Indonesia's Accidents

The Japanese Aircraft and Railway Accidents Investigation Commission (ARAIC) is to conduct an on-site investigation into the Garuda 737 accident that occurred at the Yogyakarta Airport in central Java in March. ARAIC investigators are expected to lead the investigation of the accident, which killed 21 people after Garuda Flight 200 careened off a runway end at high speed and burst into flames. So far this year, more than 120 people were killed or are still missing after two accidents in January and March. Airplanes were severely damaged in at least 13 accidents from 2004 to 2006. Of those accidents, 170 people were killed in two crashes. There have been many other incidents. The record in prior years is also unimpressive. Two Japanese were involved in the March accident, but safely escaped the aircraft before it burst into flames after landing. It will be the first time ARAIC inspectors have handled aircraft accident investigations in a foreign country. Indonesia has no equipment to analyze flight data recorders, voice recorders or other such devices, so up until now it has had to ask U.S. safety authorities to analyze the cause of each accident. However it is well known that the US and Indonesia disagreed vehemently over the cause of the Silkair Flight 185 Boeing 737 crash in December 1997. The pilot (Tsu Way Ming) was known to have had ample motive and opportunity for suicide and the scenario was borne out by flight recorder and voice recorder data. However the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee's chief investigator Professor Oetarjo Diran dismissed suicide on superficial grounds (see ASW, Jan. 1, 2001 or this ASW link ). Indonesia has also decided against funding the recovery of debris or recorders from the located Adam Air 737 sea-bottom crash site - on the basis of cost.