allowed to take off from Surabaya, Indonesia, even though it did not
have all the required clearances from regulators to fly that day, the
Indonesian Transportation Ministry said on Monday.
The ministry said it was suspending several officials for allowing the
flight to take off. And it said it had issued regulations requiring
airlines operating in Indonesia to brief their pilots on weather
conditions before each takeoff, a practice followed in many other
countries,New York Timesreports.
Djoko Murjatmodjo, the ministry's acting director-general of civil
aviation, said at a news conference that the new regulations were
issued December 31. The cause of the crash has yet to be determined,
but experts say it appeared that stormy weather encountered by the
plane may have played a role.
Murjatmodjo said the ministry ordered the Surabaya airport to suspend
officials who were on duty in key positions related to flight
operations and air traffic control when Flight 8501 took off bound for
Singapore. AirAsia officials declined to comment on the suspensions.
Officials have said that AirAsia had permits to fly the popular
Surabaya-Singapore route on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and
Saturdays, but later changed its schedule to fly on other days of the
week, The Associated Press reported. Flight 8501 took off on a Sunday.
Murjatmodjo said that while Singapore officials had approved the
Sunday flight, Indonesia had not, and the aviation agency used
incorrect information in granting Flight 8501 a takeoff slot.
He said other airlines and airports across the country will also be
scrutinized to see if they have been cutting corners in similar ways.
"Who knows if other airlines are also doing the same thing?" he
toldThe Associated Press.
Indonesia has banned AirAsia from flying between the two cities until
the investigation of the permit issue is complete.
Flight 8501, an Airbus A320 jetliner, crashed less than an hour after
takeoff, and all 162 people who were on board are believed dead.
Searchers contending with bad weather recovered three bodies from the
flight on Monday, all still strapped to their seats, bringing the
total found so far to 37.
Sonar has identified five large objects on the seafloor that are
thought to be pieces of the aircraft's fuselage, but strong currents,
silt and mud have kept divers from seeing or reaching the objects,
news agencies reported.
The captain of an Indonesian naval patrol vessel, quoted byReuters,
said that one of the objects might be the aircraft's tail.
No signals have yet been heard from the aircraft's cockpit voice and
flight data recorders, and the weather has kept searchers from using
underwater ping locaters to spot them.
The head of AirAsia's Indonesian affiliate, Sunu Widyatmoko, toldThe
Associated Presson Monday in a text message that the airline would
cooperate with the Indonesian government during the investigation, but
would not comment on the permit allegations until the process was
complete.
Alvin Lie, a former Indonesian lawmaker and aviation analyst, told the
news agency that if AirAsia were found to be operating the Sunday
flight without permission, the families of passengers killed in the
crash would have a stronger legal case for compensation.
No comments:
Post a Comment