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Sriwijaya Air crash adds to troubling safety record
With proper maintenance, age of aircraft should not matter: KNKT
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uthorities said they have picked up signals believed to be from the black boxes belonging to the Sriwijaya Air SJ-182 passenger jet that crashed off the coast of Jakarta.
The National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas), assisted by the Indonesian Navy and relevant agencies, is racing against time to fi nd both the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder of the aircraft that was meant to land in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, but disappeared from the radar only minutes after taking off on Saturday afternoon.
“We continue to monitor the two signals transmitted by the black boxes, and we have marked them. Hopefully we can lift the black boxes soon, so that we can fi nd the cause of the accident,” Indonesian Military commander Air Chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto said on Sunday in a televised press briefing.
Carrying 50 passengers and 12 crew members, the aircraft had climbed to about 11,000 feet before contact was lost and it suddenly nosedived, according to tracking website flightradar24.com.
Sriwijaya Air CEO Jeff erson Irwin Jauwena said the flight had been delayed for 30 minutes from its scheduled departure time due to heavy rain, but the plane had been “airworthy”
National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) chief Soerjanto Tjahjono said with the black boxes located, divers would soon begin the search using portable finders.
Divers have also found body parts of people on board the plane and wreckage including plane tires and children’s clothes near Laki Island, a part of the Thousand Islands chain, just north of Jakarta’s coast.
Read also: Sriwijaya Air airplane feared crashed off Jakarta
Rescue mission coordinator Brig. Gen. Rasman said the body parts were to be sent to the National Police Hospital in Kramat Jati, East Jakarta, for investigation and identifi cation by the Disaster Victim Identifi cation (DVI) team, while the plane parts would be submitted to the KNKT.
“As of right now, we have received three bags of plane parts and fi ve bags of body parts from the site,” he said in a statement.
Authorities have opened crisis centers at Soekarno Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, and at Supadio Airport in Pontianak, where family members could seek information and submit information for identification purposes.
In a statement issued on Sunday, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo expressed his condolences to the family members of the 62 people on board, saying: “On behalf of the government and all Indonesian people I would like to express my condolences for this tragedy.”
Like the 2018 Lion Air crash, which also happened in the Java Sea, the Sriwijaya SJ-182 was a Boeing aircraft, albeit of an older generation.
Read also: Factbox: Details of Sriwijaya Air plane crash
While the Lion Air airplane was a Boeing 737 MAX, which is the fourth generation of the Boeing 737, the Sriwijaya airplane was a Boeing 737-500 of the much older Boeing 737 Classic generation.
The ill-fated aircraft first flew in May 1994 with Continental Airlines in the United States, but the KNKT’s Soerjanto was quick to dismiss concerns that the age of the plane played a role in the crash.
“Regardless of its age, if the aircraft is maintained according to the regulations set by the authorities, in this case the Air Transportation Directorate General [at the Transportation Ministry], there should be no problem,” he said in a televised statement.
Airline analyst Arista Atmadjati said that, despite being 26 years old, the Boeing 737-500 was not an aging aircraft, since it was still popular for use in Europe, Russia, North America and Latin America.
Indonesia’s aviation businesses had been expanding in recent years but concerns also remained that these airlines could struggle to fi nd manpower to maintain quality and safety
The Sriwijaya accident is the latest of a long list of major accidents happening in the country.
In December 2014, an AirAsia plane with 162 people on board crashed into the Java Sea, with early media reports citing bad weather, although the KNKT eventually concluded that the trigger of the plane crash was the faulty flight control system, coupled with pilot error.
In a statement on Sunday, the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) forecasted January and February would be the peak of the rainy season, with a high chance of cumulonimbus clouds that could endanger flights.
Experts have cautioned against making premature conclusions and advised the public to wait for the full report from the KNKT, with aviation expert Alvin Lie saying bad weather may be one of several factors behind the crash.
Read also: Indonesia's deadliest air crashes in recent years
Airline analysts also predicted that, once the black box was found, the KNKT could need months or even a year to draw a conclusion.
In 2019, Sriwijaya Air terminated its partnership with national flag carrier PT Garuda Indonesia and has since sought investors willing to inject funds to boost its operations, which have significantly declined. The airline was estimated in June 2019 to owe Garuda Indonesia around US$118 million, in addition to $52 million to Garuda’s aircraft maintenance company, GMF AeroAsia.
