JAKARTA - Despite extensive
international-standard safety regulations
governing Indonesia's air traffic sector, last
week's disaster was the third major air tragedy in
less than a year. There have been 14 air accidents
so far this year and more than two dozen since
early 2004.
Seconds into a two-hour and 15
minute scheduled flight from Medan's Polonia
airport to Jakarta, a 24-year-old Boeing 737-230
operated by Mandala Airlines crashed in a densely
populated residential area 500 meters beyond the
runway. With more than 10 tons of fuel on board
the gross weight on impact would have
been
about 56 tons. In the ensuing inferno, 150 people
were killed - 103 on board and 47 on the ground -
while 15 passengers in the tail section survived.
Compensation in this instance does not
even begin to touch the lower limits of a major
Western carrier's payouts. Payment for death or
disability is only about $5,000 and for treatment
to injuries payments will be up to $2,500.
The crash has focused to an unprecedented
level public attention, and that of authorities,
on air safety. Indonesia is rated Category 1
(meeting International Civil Aviation Organization
standards) in the US Federal Aviation
Administration's International Aviation Safety
Assessment Program (IASA). These standards imply
monitoring and control of airline operations,
aircraft maintenance, pilot training and
licensing, and minimum required equipment on
aircraft.
The problem may be in
enforcement of those regulations and the
accompanying checks and tests, in a culture where
corruption, to a lesser or greater degree, is the
norm where regulations of any kind are involved.
"It's how to implement these regulations
without officials who can be bribed. This is what
can endanger safety," Transport minister Hatta
Radjasa told a local radio station after emerging
from a special parliamentary hearing with the
House of Representatives Commission V dealing with
transport and communications.
Legislators
and local commentators have questioned safety and
maintenance standards for Indonesia's extensive
fleets of aging jets, asking whether carriers were
prioritizing safety above all else in the current
difficult conditions in a sector badly hit by
rocketing fuel costs and a protracted ticketing
price war. The crowded and competitive market has
forced most carriers to cut costs and fares to
avoid bankruptcy.
"What we worry about
most is that the price competition could lead to
the companies neglecting safety aspects," said
Sofyan Mile, head of the commission.
Though some factions in parliament are
even calling for all 737-200 series aircraft to be
banned, wiser counsel has prevailed for the time
being, with the government initiating random ramp
inspections and inspections of aircraft in
maintenance hangars.
"Most local carriers
operate this type of aircraft [Boeing 737-300] and
they have the highest accident rates, but we will
not ground all of the planes," Radjasa said.
This is a sensible approach, given that
most aircraft crashes have proven to be related to
pilot error, faulty maintenance, air traffic
control errors or extremely bad weather
conditions. On the rare occasions a crash, or even
a reported incident, is proven to be due to faulty
design, a quick change in the design follows, even
preceded by a grounding of the global fleet until
the fault has been remedied - if it has the
potential to bring down more of the aircraft type.
The aircraft and its owners The
doomed aircraft was nearly 25 years old. It's
first livery after leaving the Boeing factory was
as Lufthansa D-ABHK in 1981. In 1994 it changed
ownership twice, first as Tunisair TF-ABY, then
finally as Mandala Airlines PK-RIM. It had flown
more than 50,000 hours and had undergone a full
service in June.
Mandala Airlines was
founded in April 1969 and is 90% owned by the
Indonesian Army's Strategic Reserve Command
(Kostrad). Before the crash it had a fleet of 15
Boeings - 13 Boeing 737-200s, two Boeing 737-400s
and a Boeing 727 - and earlier this year ordered
another five. The airline serves 16 domestic
routes and employs about 1,300 people.
Most reports describe the carrier as a
"budget" airline but as Nicholas Ionides, Asian
editor for Flight International Magazine points
out, it is not a low-cost carrier. "It's an
airline that's been around for a long time, and
just because it's not a Singapore Airlines or a
Cathay Pacific full-service, premium airline, it
shouldn't be classified in the same category as
other true low-cost airlines, like Air Asia," he
said.
Nonetheless, the carrier's
commissioner and current Kostrad chief Major
General Hadi Waluyo said the company had been in
financial difficulties during the past two years,
though claiming the downturn had nothing to with
the crash. All Mandala's planes were in good
condition and the group was planning a financial
recovery package that would make the airline more
competitive, he said.
Cultural
questions Some raise the question of
whether the real danger to passenger safety is the
frequently lax attitudes toward safety in a
country prone to frequent major accidents on road,
rail and in the air. David Learmount, a leading
expert on air safety, points out that the
less-developed countries have a much-less-strong
safety culture, in every way, than those in the
developed West.
Commenting on the recent
series of six fatal air crashes worldwide, he said
that when this is factored in to air transport, it
means that flying on airlines other than the
"majors" is simply not as safe. "This is because
countries which are more modern, politically and
economically, have the luxury of a safety culture,
which applies to everything, such as road safety,
and not just aviation," he said.
The
official handle Investigators say they have
discovered signs of engine problems but that
further analysis is needed to determine the reason
for the crash. The National Transportation Safety
Committee, NTSC, is responsible for the probe. As
expected, it has refused to speculate on the cause
of the disaster. Its public comments so far
include a denial that terrorism played a part in
the crash and that the overcast weather was
unlikely to have been a factor. NTSC also says
there were no clues in the conversations between
air traffic control and the crew of the doomed
airliner.
Tests are to be conducted on the
fuel lines and fuel quality. A compressor
deformation has been noted and is being
investigated further. "We found that the fan blade
engine was in a damaged condition. We also found
that the three screw-jack actuators came loose
from a flap and the wing," said Setio Raharjo, who
heads a team of NTSC investigators. He appealed to
those who have taken pieces of the aircraft to
return them to enable the investigation to be
conclusive.
A team of six investigators
from the US National Safety Transportation Board
(NSTB) is also helping with the investigation.
Both black boxes have been recovered and will
eventually be sent to the US for analysis.
Speculation The scenes of sheer
horror and grief televised to the nation for
almost three days, before those bodies that could
not be identified were buried in a mass grave,
sparked intensive speculation in the mainstream
media. Excess weight? The age of the ill-fated
plane? Unreliable engines due to poor maintenance
by the airline? One report said flight records
showed the aircraft took off with only three
kilograms of allowable weight to spare but NTSC
has dismissed this.
One pilot, writing to
a professional mailing list, though requesting
anonymity, conjured up the horror of how the final
seconds in the cockpit would have panned out if
the aircraft was indeed overweight. "You lost an
engine past V1... decide to continue, go for the
single-engine climb speed ... you're heavier than
you think ... will you reach that speed? If you
do, then you want to enter the single-engine
climb, and your altitude doesn't increase ... you
pull again ... the next thing you know, you're
behind the power curve; speed begins to drop
despite fire walling the remaining engine ... then
the stick shaker comes on ... and ... ."
Older aircraft can be operated safely as
long as they are adequately maintained. There are
about 4,200 Boeing 737 of all series still in
service across the world. Local sources suggest
carriers commonly "dumb down" aircraft by
disabling the auto brakes and auto throttle to
maintain higher utility rates and low turnaround
times. This is not a safety issue, per se, but
means more brake and engine changes than normal
are needed. Falling yields and the soaring fuel
price, the argument goes, may have led to even
more drastic cost-cutting measures.
Putra
Jaya, one legislator from Commission V, said: "If
fuel prices go up, the plane ticket prices should
also go up. If they do not, some corners must be
cut. Of course, it won't be food but it will be
service and maintenance costs."
Australian
analyst Gerard Frawley, editor of the Australian
Aviation magazine, sums up, "Indonesia has had
more than its fair share of crashes over the past
decade, considering that its aviation industry is
not unusually large, although we have to be
careful drawing conclusions because a country can
easily have a run of bad luck."
As if to
reinforce his words, a Garuda Indonesia aircraft
made an emergency landing at Pekan Baru, Riau the
day after the Medan disaster. It was en route to
Medan from Jakarta. A Mandala aircraft also
returned on Tuesday to Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta
International Airport after 10 minutes in the air
due to problems with landing gear warning lamps.
A Batavia Air Boeing 737-200 en route to
Medan from Jakarta made an emergency stop on
Thursday at Palembang, and a light aircraft
belonging to Dirgantara Air Service crashed in
Kalimantan province on Friday. A Lion Air flight,
with 152 passengers and seven crew members on
board, was diverted to another airport on Saturday
due to heavy rain.
Grounded By
accident or design all this was enough for the
government. By the end of the week four 737-200s
in different liveries were temporarily grounded
following special checks initiated by the
Transport Ministry. Two were grounded on Friday
night after inspectors carried out ramp checks on
the planes at Soekarno-Hatta Airport. Two others
were grounded after the minister made a sudden
visit to the airport on Saturday afternoon. Among
the problems discovered was a damaged front
landing wheel on one of the aircraft, according to
Kompas newspaper. Transport Minister Radjasa
changed tack on his earlier comments, and was
quoted as saying the government was now
considering suspending the issuance of permits for
737-200s because of the age of the aircraft type.
Ramp checks will be implemented every day
at this airport, compared with the previous
quarterly checks. But oddly enough, director
general of Air Transport Mohammad Iksan Tatang was
quoted as saying ramp checks had nothing to do
with flight safety but with service. He did say,
however, "We are going to audit airlines'
financial reports and if they touch up maintenance
issues, we will cancel their routes."
Indonesia is the largest archipelago in
the world. With 17,000 islands and more than 235
million people, air, sea and land transport plays
a vital role in the country. It straddles the
equator over a distance of some 3,200 miles and
has nearly 450 airports with profound differences
in navigational and landing aids, weather
conditions and air traffic density.
Polonia airport, for example, is the main
entry point for relief teams and supplies heading
to tsunami-affected areas of Aceh province. The
airport's usual 20 planes per day soared to more
than 300 daily in early January and it still
controls a very busy and often crowded sector of
Indonesian airspace.
On September 26, 1997
a Garuda Indonesia Airbus A300 on final approach
to Medan on a flight from Jakarta came down in a
mountainous area 30 kilometers from the airport.
Extensive smoke and haze from numerous forest
fires caused reduced visibility in the area. All
12 crew members and 222 passengers were killed.
Polonia's 3000-meter runway leads to residential
areas and highrise buildings. The government plans
to build a new airport at Kualanamu, 34 kilometers
from downtown Medan, but this is only on the
drawing board.
Should a fault attributed
to Mandala rather than to Boeing prove to have
been the main contributing factor of last week's
Medan disaster, it may take years to build up the
confidence of the flying public that it is once
again safe, or as safe as elsewhere, to take to
the skies in Indonesia. As an editorial in the
influential Media Indonesia, owned by the same
group that owns Metro TV, which provided most of
the on-the-spot televised coverage, warned, "In
Indonesia it has become a common matter that
passengers, including safety, are being
sacrificed."
Bill Guerin, a
Jakarta correspondent for Asia Times Online since
2000, has worked in Indonesia for 20 years as a
journalist. He has been published by the BBC on
East Timor and specializes in business/economic
and political analysis in Indonesia.
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