Ministry cleared Jetstar to land, will not investigate incident (The Jakarta Post, Jakarta)

26/07/07
Alvin Darlanika Soedarjo,
The Transportation Ministry said Tuesday it had issued a clearance for the Australian airline Jetstar to make its emergency landing in Bali after the plane suffered engine failure on its flight from Bangkok to Melbourne.

The ministry said it did not need to investigate the incident.

"According to the International Air Transport Association convention, we need to assist an international carrier that needs to make an emergency landing here," Director General of Air Transport at the Transportation Ministry, Budhi M. Suyitno, told The Jakarta Post.
The engine failure prompted the Airbus A330-200, carrying 302 passengers and 12 crew members, to land at the Ngurah Rai Airport just outside Bali's provincial capital of Denpasar early Monday.

The airplane was flying in Indonesian airspace when one of its two engines experienced problems.

Jetstar is the budget subsidiary of Qantas Airways.

"Jetstar has sent another aircraft to fly the passengers to Melbourne," Budhi said.
"However, the faulty aircraft is still in the airport for repair."

The passengers had to wait for about 17 hours before they were flown to Australia.
Budhi said his office followed up the incident by asking for a report from the civil aviation regulatory body of Australia on the cause of the engine failure.

Transportation expert from The Gadjah Mada University, Heru Sutomo, told the Post that as an addition to Australian investigators, Indonesia, as the country where the aircraft was diverted to, could offer local investigation assistants.

"I'm not sure that Indonesia has an official body that is recognized internationally to investigate aircraft incidents," Heru said.

"Only regulatory bodies from advanced countries, such as the U.S. or European countries, have standardized teams for incident investigations," Heru said.

Indonesia has a team for accident investigation for similar scenarios, he said, but the best Indonesia could do was to trust the Australian airline and civil aviation regulatory body.

"A report from Jetstar is not enough -- its report is invalid without a report from the country's regulator."

With regard to Europe's recent airline prohibition against Indonesia, the Transportation Ministry said it was preparing to send official documents and safety progress reports to the European Union.

"The EU official has yet to specify when they will arrive in Indonesia," said Transportation Ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan.

"But we expect them to come in early August."

The EU slapped a ban on all Indonesian airlines on July 6 despite the fact no carriers fly into EU territory at the moment.

However, before the ban, flag carrier Garuda Indonesia announced plans to resume flights into EU territory.