Sriwijaya Air faces audit after pilots land at wrong airport
Nurfika Osman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Business | Sun, October 14 2012, 4:54 PM
The Transportation Ministry says it will audit safety practices at Sriwijaya Air after one of the airline’s planes landed at the wrong airport.
“We are going to audit the airline as a corrective action to improve its safety because this is a serious incident,” ministry spokesman Bambang S. Ervan told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.
Official from the ministry’s air transportation directorate were on the way to Padang to investigate, while the plane’s pilot and co-pilot were grounded, Bambang said.
Sriwijaya SJ0021 departed from Polonia Airport in Medan, North Sumatra on Saturday. The plane was bound for Minangkabau International Airport in Padang but instead landed at Tabing Air Force Base, about 20 kilometers south of its intended destination.
According to Sriwijaya senior corporate communications manager Agus Soedjono, all of the passengers on the flight were safe and transferred by bus to Minangkabau International Airport.
He said that the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) was also investigating the case aside from the regulator.(iwa)
