Aviation Community Protests, Fears Ramifications
The arrest this week of the pilot of
a Garuda Indonesia 737 that crashed on landing last year was met
with protests within the aviation community, and renews the debate
over whether commercial pilots should be held criminally
responsible for accidents.
The Seattle Times reports Captain Marwoto Komar was arrested
Tuesday, and charged with a range of offenses including
manslaughter. If convicted, Komar could face five or more years in
prison.
As ANN reported, Komar was
the captain of a Boeing 737-400 that overshot the runway on landing
at Yogyakarta airport in central Java, and slid into a rice field.
The aircraft burst into flames, killing 21 people, while 119 others
were able to escape through the exits of the burning jet in the
March 7, 2007 accident.
Investigators later disclosed Komar ignored repeated warnings --
both from cockpit alarms, and the flight's co-pilot -- that the jet
was coming in for landing much too fast. Cockpit recordings
indicated the co-pilot had repeatedly called for the captain to
abort the landing, and go-around.
In its final report on the
crash, released in October 2007, Indonesia's National
Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) found the pilot was
"singing" during the approach, below 10,000 feet and prior to
reaching 4,000 feet, which was "not in accordance with the Garuda
Basic Operations Manual policy for a sterile cockpit below 10,000
feet.
"The pilot was probably emotionally aroused because his
conscious awareness moved from the relaxed mode "singing" to the
heightened stressfulness of the desire to reach the runway by
making an excessively steep and fast, unstable approach," the
report said, adding the pilot was "fixated" on landing the
aircraft.
Aviation attorney John Nance,
himself a former Alaska Airlines 737 pilot, said the report clearly
indicates authorities should "throw the book" at Komar, and make
sure he never steps into a cockpit again... but adds Komar
shouldn't be charged criminally, for fear it would set a dangerous
precedent.
Nance believes the threat of criminal charges would prevent
pilots from disclosing all relevant information about an accident
to investigators -- resulting in a "chilling effect" on that
process.
Roughly 30 commercial pilots staged a protest recently at the
Indonesian parliament building in Jakarta, calling for Komar to be
tried by a dedicated aviation tribunal, not the Indonesian courts
system.
The International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations
also stated it was "saddened" to learn of Komar's arrest, according
to Russia's Pravda news service.