SilkAir MI 185
Letter to Canberra Times
A pdf copy of Flight Safety magazine will be available next week at:
www.casa.gov.au
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Ref: Air safety report
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (Australia) has just published a report in its journal Flight Safety Australia which I would like to see picked up by the media, for the sake of Australians who have to forsake our very safe airlines and fly with foreign carriers. Without making a judgment, the report says "readers can draw their own conclusions".
In the light of the most recent fatal landing accident in Indonesia, I have
drawn mine.
The report of a crash in December 1997 seems to ine to show that the
aircraft, carrying 102 people, was destroyed by a deliberate act of the
captain, who, we are told, was in serious financial difficulties. It seems
he switched off the cockpit recorders and sent the loaded airliner into an
inverted dive at over the speed of sound, an action which required a
positive, deliberate, control input tip to the moment the aircraft began to break tip before impact.
The investigation was one of the most comprehensive possible, but "the Indonesian National Transport Safety Bureau ... produced
an evasive and worthless report", contradicting the careful findings of the
non-Indonesian investigative bodies.
A further report in Flight Safety suggests to me there is a deep-seated
official reluctance to admit it is possible "that anyone who would commit
suicide would also kill so many innocent people alongside him". The pilot involved had been reported and indeed demoted for landing too fast and trying to "reduce flight times".
Travellers would be well advised to study this excellent report and consider
its import.
Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) licensed copy
Canberra Times
Wednesday 13/2/2008
Page: 12
Section: Letters
Region: Canberra Circulation: 33,935
Type: Capital City Daily
Size: 77.13 sq.cms.
Published: MTWTFS