The Jakarta Globe, Putri Prameshwari, February 24, 2009
Prosecutors said Capt. Marwoto Komar ignored several warnings not to land. (Photo: Regina Safri, Antara)
Prosecutors in the country’s first criminal-negligence trial against an aircraft pilot on Monday recommended a four-year jail sentence for Capt. Marwoto Komar over the Garuda Indonesia jetliner crash in Yogyakarta in 2007 that left 21 people dead, including five Australians.
Marwoto was trying to land the ill-fated Boeing 737, which left Jakarta on March 7, 2007, with 140 people on board, when he missed the runway at Yogyakarta’s Adisucipto International Airport and crashed into a nearby field, causing the plane to burst into flames.
“The prosecutors did not have enough evidence for their primary charge, so they recommended four years [in prison] for negligence,” said Muhammad Assegaf, Marwoto’s lawyer.
Prosecutors initially accused him of manslaughter, a crime that can carry the death sentence.
“Based on the testimony of witnesses and the defendant himself — as well as other evidence — we ask the judges to declare the defendant guilty of negligence leading to the crash,” Modim Aristo, who headed the team of prosecutors, told the Sleman district court in Yogyakarta, according to the state-run Antara news agency.
Assegaf said Marwoto should not even be on trial because pilots should not face criminal charges.
“He is the first pilot in Indonesia to be charged with a criminal offense [as a pilot],” Assegaf said, adding that Marwoto should be tried by an aviation council.
The Ministry of Transportation is legally authorized to form a professional council to administer such problems, comprising aviation experts, officials from the National Transportation Safety Committee, or KNKT, and representatives from the ministry.
Prosecutors Modim and Jamin Susanto, who took turns reading the 176-page recommendation, said the evidence showed that the defendant had ignored a warning from the co-pilot and alerts from the Ground Positioning Warning System and continued to land despite the plane’s high speed.
In its report on the crash, the KNKT said the pilot had landed at high speed and had ignored 15 automatic warnings against landing, as well as “two calls from the co-pilot to go around.”
But Assegaf said his client was a cautious man and that he initially refused to take off from Jakarta because of a blinking indicator.
“An indicator beeped before the plane took off and Marwoto refused to fly before it was repaired,” Assegaf said. “This shows my client was being cautious.”
Judge Sri Andini, who headed the panel of judges, said that the trial will resume on March 10 to hear from the defense.
Poor infrastructure and a lack of safety measures have led to a string of air accidents in Indonesia in recent years, prompting the European Union to ban all Indonesian craft from flying over Europe.
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