Another Indonesian Air Disaster

Rick Patterson

Attorney

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After Garuda Indonesia flight GA-200 shot off the runway and exploded on Wednesday into what one passenger described as a "wall of fire", Australians and Indonesians alike are left to sort out the remains and the details. That is because many of the passengers on this particular aircraft were public figures in Australia. It is unknown at this early stage exactly what caused this accident.

Indonesia has had less than a stellar record with regards to their aviation history. As recently as New Year's Day, there was a crash of an Adam Air jet that took as many as 102 lives. Prior to that, there were 200 people killed in Indonesian airline accidents in 2005 alone. In fact, Indonesia has a major airline accident at a rate of almost one per month.

There seems to be many areas of concern at this point i.e., frequency of airplane accidents, pilot training, aircraft maintenance and the enforcement of regulations. These type of ongoing tragedies cause an incredible amount of pain to the families of the lost passengers. There also seems to be no end in sight. Clearly this needs to be sorted out quickly. If it is not, aircrafts should be grounded. It would seem that at the very least their aviation records thus far should be clearly posted for all would-be passengers to review, in addition to distributing their aviation record with the sale of each ticket. It makes one wonder just how many people would fly on the Indonesian airline if they knew the real risks involved. On a less important point, a record like that can't be good for tourism and trade.