http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21348939-7583,00.html
Editorial: Air disaster unites nations in tragedy a.. b.. March 09, 2007 Amid shared grief, Indonesia must reform its aviation industry BETWEEN the twin Bali bombings and the Boxing Day tsunami, Indonesia and Australia have helped each other through more than their fair share of tragedies in recent years. With Wednesday's air disaster in Yogyakarta, the grim routine of Australian and Indonesian doctors and investigators working side by side to comfort the living and identify the dead has once again found cause to repeat itself. But there is a special poignancy about Wednesday's incident. For while every one of the at least 22 deaths suffered on the flight is a tragedy when Garuda Indonesia flight GA-200 shot off the runway and exploded, it took with it some of Australia's great talents. The Australian public service was particularly hard hit, as was the journalistic community by the news that the Australian Financial Review's Walkley Award-winning Jakarta correspondent Morgan Mellish died in the crash. Liz O'Neill, the Australian embassy spokeswoman who received an Order of Australia Medal for her work responding to the 2002 Bali bombing, Brice Steel, the embassy's head of police and Alison Sudrajat, AusAID director at the embassy, and AFP officer Mark Scott are among the missing and presumed dead. Yet, miraculously, others survived what one passenger described as a "wall of fire", including Sydney Morning Herald journalist Cynthia Banham, who was seated between Ms O'Neill and Mr Mellish and who has since been evacuated to Perth. But grief must inevitably lead to action. Even as we wait for the final verdict on what caused the accident - an overly steep and quick approach is the leading theory for the moment - a few things are known for sure. First among them is that the Indonesian aviation industry is in need of overhaul and regulatory reform. Yesterday's crash shows flying Garuda, as opposed to one of Indonesia's myriad budget carriers, is no guarantee of safety. This week's was one of a string of fatal incidents in recent Indonesian aviation history, including the New Year's Day crash of an Adam Air jet that took 102 lives. Nor is the recent wave of incidents a statistical fluke. Indonesia suffers a major airline accident nearly once a month, though not all claim lives. In 2005, a dozen airline accidents killed 200 people. Proposals by the Indonesian Government to ground commercial airliners that have seen more than 10 years' service seem like window dressing in the face of broader concerns about aircraft maintenance, pilot training and the enforcement of existing regulations. Given that 30 per cent of commercial airline accidents worldwide involve what the industry calls "runway excursions" of the sort that occurred on Wednesday, it may be that better training is called for to better equip Indonesian pilots to handle such emergencies. And besides the human toll, there is an economic cost to such disasters as well. Indonesia is an archipelago of 17,000 islands, around 6000 of which are inhabited, and as such is especially reliant on air travel. Even if air travel remains statistically safer than other forms of transport, the emotional impact of Wednesday's horrifying scenes, coupled with the seemingly routine nature of air accidents in Indonesia, has the potential to hurt that growing country's ability to attract trade and tourism. The Australian extends its sympathies to the families of all those killed in the crash, including the eight-month-old daughter Ms O'Neill left behind. But even as teams of Indonesian and Australian officials begin to piece together exactly what went wrong on Wednesday, all the answers in the world won't bring back those who were lost. Yet they might just prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
