Reuters:
JAKARTA (Reuters) - An Indonesian airliner that crashed at Yogyakarta airport last month killing 21 people came down too fast and at a sharp angle, preliminary results from a crash investigation showed on Wednesday.
The chief of the country's Transport Safety Commission said the Garuda Indonesia operated Boeing 737-400 plane bounced and skidded off the runway before bursting into flames.
"When the plane was about to land, it looked too high over the runway coming down with a quite high speed," Tatang Kurniadi told a news conference.
"After touching the ground, the plane bounced twice and around exit delta the front wheel broke causing the plane to slide with the shock strut exposed." Exit delta refers to a point on the runway.
"This caused friction between metal and the runway igniting sparks," he said.
The commission's statement said flight GA 200 approached the runway at a 40 degree angle.
Kurniadi said the investigation had not yet reached a conclusion so could not apportion blame.
The final report will take more than two months more to complete and it would only be issued publicly after parties related to the flight had received a copy, he said.
Garuda's operations director, Ari Sapari, said the pilot and co-pilot had been grounded until the final report is out.
Survivors of the crash have described how the aircraft approached the runway in Yogyakarta at a "crazy" speed. It had 140 people on board when it overshot and then burst into flames.
Five Australians were among the casualties. They were part of a group who had been accompanying Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who was not on board the ill-fated plane, on a visit to Indonesia.
Rapid growth in air travel in Indonesia, a country of more than 17,000 islands, has raised questions over whether safety has been compromised and whether the infrastructure and personnel can cope with the huge increase.
Or AP:
Indonesian jet's landing speed was 100 mph too fast
JAKARTA, Indonesia — An Indonesian passenger jet was flying at close to 265 mph, almost double the normal landing speed, when it crash-landed one month ago, killing 21 people, a chief investigator said Saturday.
A preliminary accident report has not yet determined, however, if pilot error caused the Boeing 737-400 to overshoot the runway, skid into a rice field and burst into flames at the Yogyakarta airport, Marjono Siswosuwarno said.
"The plane was flying well above the normal landing speed of 140 knots [160 mph] when it crash-landed," he said, putting the speed as it approached the runway at between 255 mph and 264 mph.
"We are still interrogating the pilots to figure out why this happened ... we haven't determined yet if it was pilot error."
Aviation experts confirmed that speed and flap warnings would have sounded in the cockpit and the pilot should have aborted the landing, according to The Sydney Morning Herald, which said it obtained a copy of the confidential Transport Safety Committee report.
It claimed the airport runaway also did not meet international safety standards — with a safety run-off a quarter of the recommended length — and that weather was good despite claims by pilots of a serious downdraft.
The March 7 crash was the fourth accident involving a commercial jetliner in Indonesia since 2005. Experts say poor maintenance, rule-bending and a shortage of properly trained pilots may contribute to the sprawling country's poor aviation-safety record.