Garuda Case: Aircraft In Fact Landed Too Fast

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: The National Committee for Transportation Safety (KNKT) has acknowledged that during the landing process, the speed of Garuda Indonesia's GA-200 aircraft, which caught fire in Yogyakarta in early March, was too high. Mardjono Siswo Suwarno, Head of the KNKT Investigation Team for the Garuda accident, said that according to data from the black box, during the landing the aircraft's speed was 230 knots or equivalent to 425.5 kilometer per hour. Such a speed is almost twice of the normal limit 140 knots or 295 kilometers per hour. �Too fast,� he said in Jakarta yesterday (8/4), adding that landing at such a very high speed could cause damage to the aircraft structure. The Garuda's GA-200 Boeing 737-400 overshot the runway when it landed at Adisutjipto Airport, Yogyakarta, on March 7. The aircraft then caught fire and this resulted in the deaths of 21 out of 131 passengers. The statement was made in response to reports in Australia's Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) last Saturday, that the Garuda landed at twice the normal speed. When touching the ground, the speed was 410 kilometers per hour, almost twice the recommended speed of 250 kilometers per hour, despite the runway length being limited.However, Mardjono emphasized that KNKT has not yet been able to conclude that this was the cause of the Garuda accident. The team must still investigate the data further. The investigation will cover not only the technical aspects but also the situation when the aircraft was flying as well as the condition of the pilot and co-pilot. �There will be urine and psychological tests,� he said.Regarding the cause of the accident, Australia's television station Nine Network did report there were arguments between the pilot and the co-pilot when the aircraft was about to land. However SMH has stated there was no evidence of the arguments. Nonetheless the newspaper said that the pilot had reported an error in the reverse thrust of one of the aircraft's engines before the aircraft took off. In its report, SMH also accused Transportation Minister Hatta Rajasa of deliberately not releasing the results of investigation into the Garuda accident because he was afraid of the claims from the victims' families in Australia. To Koran Tempo, yesterday, Hatta denied the accusation and stressed that the investigation was not yet over. When it was over, he said, everything will be conveyed in a transparent manner.