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Monday, June 23, 2008 Yogyakarta airport unlicensed at time of crash: report
The Australian Associated Press
Five Australians died when
the Boeing 737 bounced and skidded off the runway. Indonesia's Yogyakarta
airport was operating without a license due to outstanding safety issues when a
Garuda plane crashed last year, killing 21 people, an Australian air safety
firm has found. Flight Safety Pty Ltd, which carried out an audit of the airport following a
request from an unnamed client, said authorities had failed to implement five
conditions for a license, including extending the runway and safety area. State carrier Garuda's Boeing 737, with 140 people on board, bounced and
skidded off the runway in Yogyakarta, central Java, before bursting into flames
in a rice field in March 2007. The aviation safety firm said Yogyakarta's operating license had ended on
August 1, 2006 - eight months before the crash - because it had failed to
fulfil the five conditions for the five-year license issued by Indonesian
authorities. An Indonesian safety official denied the airport was functioning without a
license. "At that time [the licence] was still valid, but the RESA [Runway End
Safety Area] was not long enough," Mardjono Siswo Suwarno of the National
Transport Safety Committee said. "But still in the [Garuda] case, even if the RESA length was adequate,
the plane would have still overrun because the speed was 1.8 times normal
speed." Last year, an Indonesian safety report said the pilot ignored 15 warnings as
he descended too fast, but declined to attribute the crash to "human
error" or "pilot error". But in February this year, the pilot was arrested on charges that include
manslaughter and violating aviation laws. "If there is another overrun on that airport, the same thing is going
to happen. It is an absolutely untenable thing in terms of safety," Colin
Weir, owner of Brisbane-based Flight Safety said. Airport audit
Flight Safety said it was called on by a client to audit Garuda after the
crash, which led it to audit Yogyakarta, Solo and Semarang airports. It found
that all three airports at the time were operating without a licence. "When we looked at these airports we discovered that the licensing, the
Airport Operating Certificate, had been issued for five years but subject to
five conditions and these conditions had to be fulfilled within a 12-month
period," Mr Weir said. "The conditions included extension of the runway and safety area and
that there be an audit by the DGCA [Indonesian Regulatory Authority] after six
months, with a final cross check audit after 12 months. "None of this was done in the 12-month period and that period lapsed on
the August 1, 2006. When the Garuda accident happened these conditions had not
been fulfilled and therefore the licence becomes null and void." Mr Weir said Flight Safety notified the International Civil Aviation
Organisation, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau which helped investigate
the Yogyakarta crash, and the director of Indonesia's Aviation Safety body. "We were then told by the Indonesian director of Aviation Safety that
the deficiencies had been rectified, however we have just conducted a re-audit
only to find that there is no change to Solo and Yogyakarta," he said,
adding that he has since been told by the director that "all conditions
had been fulfilled". "They might have changed those conditions now to make it legal, but at
the time of the accident we have the audit report to show that what we are
saying is 100 per cent correct." 'No problems'
Budi Mulyawan Suyitno, director general of air transportation at Indonesia's
transportation ministry, said there did not appear to be a problem with
Yogyakarta's licence. "We don't see there's any licence problem [for Yogyakarta], but I will
check again," he said, adding that authorities had been responding to
safety concerns by declaring a RESA for 140 metres of the 2,250 metre runway
and adding fire trucks. Rapid growth in air travel in Indonesia has raised questions over whether
safety has been compromised and whether the infrastructure and personnel can
cope with the huge increase. |
