T

he National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) is still investigating the causes of an air disaster in Luwu, South Sulawesi, that resulted in the deaths of 10 passengers. The government has meanwhile suspended the license of Aviastar, the airline operating the plane.

KNKT chief Soerjanto Tjahjono said the plane, which crashed in Gamaru hamlet, Ulu Salu village, Latimojong district, had taken a different route than usual from Masamba, North Luwu regency, to Makassar.

'€œThe crash site indicates that the plane was off route by about 15 nautical miles,'€ Soerjanto said on Tuesday night.

The committee, he said, would speed up the investigation in the hope of discovering why the plane crashed in the mountainous area on Friday.

'€œWhy did the plane take a different route? Was it the weather? It could be revealed after we examine the black box and cockpit voice recorder. The investigation will take a maximum 12 months,'€ he added.

Aviastar district manager Kustono Rasidianto confirmed that the plane had taken a route normally never used because it involved passing the mountainous Latimojong area located 10,000 feet above sea level.

According to Kustono, the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) reported that the weather in the area was good when the plane took off from Andi Djemma airport in Masamba on Friday morning, although cumulus clouds formed frequently later in the day.

He added that the plane'€™s pilot Iriafriadi was considered skillful and had flown Aviastar planes on routes between Makassar, Masamba, Seko, Rampi, Tana Toraja, Palu and Gorontalo.

Iriafriadi had piloted charter planes in Sentani, Papua, for a year before he joined Aviastar as a co-pilot four years ago.

'€œThe pilot is experienced and professional, with more than 2,600 flying hours,'€ he said.

Kustono said his company planned to deploy another Twin Otter, which currently served Nabire in Papua, to take over the Masamba-Makassar route.

Meanwhile, the Transportation Ministry announced on Tuesday night that it had suspended the airline'€™s operation permit.

The ministry'€™s air transportation directorate froze the scheduled flight operation permit of PT Aviastar Mandiri since the airline did not meet the requirements on plane numbers according to Law No. 1/2009 on airline.

'€œ[The license] was frozen because the number of planes did not fulfilled the requirement for scheduled flights. For the scheduled flights, it only has three planes with capacity above 30 passengers,'€ air transportation director general Suprasetyo said.

However, he said the airline was still permitted to operate its seven Twin Otters with capacity less than 30 passengers for unscheduled flights as it still met the requirement.

'€œThe freezing was not connected with the plane crash, just with plane numbers,'€ Suprasetyo claimed, adding that the ill-fated plane was not categorized as a scheduled flight plane as it had a capacity of less than 30 passengers.

Meanwhile, as of Wednesday night, the Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team had only identified three of the 10 bodies: engineering officer Soekris Winarto, 43, and passengers Nurul Fatimah, 26, and Riza Arman, 30.

The body of Soekris has been handed over to his relatives and flown to Sidoarjo, East Java, for burial. The body of Nurul has been handed over to her relatives in Masamba but her burial was postponed as her children, Rayya Adawiyah, 3, and Afif, 1, who also died in the incident, have not been identified.

The body of Riza has not been handed over, pending the identification of the body of his wife Lisa Falentin and child Sakhi Abrori, 1, who both also perished.

'€œWe will take the body [of Riza] along with his wife and son when the identification process is complete, which may be tomorrow,'€ Riza'€™s brother Firzon said. (fsu)