Jakarta – While Indonesia has lost many lives to plane crashes, the airlines have never been held responsible, an activist group says.
The Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) is advising families of the passengers on a missing Adam Air plane to sue the airline for negligence, even though the cause of the presumed accident is still unknown.
YLKI chair Indah Sukmaningsih said the airline's management should account for their failure to ensure the safety of the 96 passengers and six crew members on board the Boeing 737-400. Negligence that leads to an accident is a corporate crime, Indah noted, adding that YLKI was ready to provide advocacy.
Taking Adam Air management to court would help launch an era of responsibility in airline management, she argued.
"It would serve as a strong warning to the airline companies that passengers' safety is of the utmost importance," Indah told The Jakarta Post. "So it would not be about winning or losing the case. Without due legal process, it would be difficult to determine who should be responsible for the disaster," she added.
Indah said in other crashes, relatives of the victims have simply accepted compensation provided by insurance firms. "The government has never take legal nor administrative actions against the airline companies for the accidents that may have been caused by negligence," she added.
The public, she said, had the right to know whether the pilot had followed standard procedures or whether a plane crash was caused by malfunctioning equipment.
Mezak A. Ratag, head of the research and development section of the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG), said a pilot must never skip a standard procedure, or an accident could result. Unfortunately, Mezak said, many pilots from commercial airlines ignored the procedures.
"I have received reports that many pilots of commercial flights don't collect or study the weather maps provided by the BMG before they fly the planes," he was quoted by Antara as saying at the launching of the International Year of Planet Earth in Bandung on Saturday.
The weather map contains information about rain, wind velocity and cloud formations, as well as turbulence along the route. It is available one hour before the flight's scheduled departure.
Mezak said pilots should attend briefings with BMG officials about the weather conditions along the planned route. "In foreign countries, pilots go to a room and study the weather before they go on duty."
Mezak said every airport that serves commercial flights should have a briefing room where pilots can discuss the weather with BMG officials. Several airports, including Husein Sastranegara in Bandung, do not have such a facility.