Suicide Blamed For Air Disaster

The captain of a Silk Air jetliner that went down in an Indonesian jungle in 1997, killing all 104 people aboard, probably crashed the jet on purpose, the Washington Post reported Friday, quoting the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.

In a rare rebuke to a foreign counterpart, the NTSB said investigations showed that Captain Tsu Way Ming, once a stunt flyer with the Singapore Air Force, was in serious debt from financial market speculation at the time of the crash and had experienced several run-ins with the management of his airline.

The U.S. agency took issue with an official Indonesian report that said no cause of the crash could be determined, according to the Post article.

The theory of suicide-murder has been aired before, but the safety board's report is the first time it has been publicly posed by investigators, the Post reported.

Writing to the head of the Indonesian air safety agency, Oetarjo Diran, on December 11, NTSB chairman Jim Hall said evidence suggested nothing was mechanically wrong with the Boeing 737 and "the accident can be explained by intentional pilot action."

Asked about the comments, Diran told Reuters in Jakarta: "From the investigation and from the data that we have, we cannot come to any conclusion as to what caused the accident.

"I cannot prove that assumption (of suicide). We do not have the data to support that assumption."

Indonesia has said it conducted a thorough and professional investigation of the crash.

But the U.S. analysis said Indonesia ignored much of the evidence developed during a lengthy probe. That investigation involved U.S. safety board investigators because the plane was manufactured in the United States.

In releasing its report, the Post said the NTSB risked triggering an incident like the one that erupted following the crash of an EgyptAir jumbo jet into the Atlantic Ocean in 1999.

Initial reports indicated that a co-pilot deliberately flew the plane into the water during a flight from New York. That led to a public dispute within Egypt, which said the co-pilot never would have done such a thing.

Eventually, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and President Clinton conferred on the crash, but no final report on the incident has been issued.

U.S. sources said the Silk Air probe was different from that of the EgyptAir crash because the Indonesians not only ignored the possibility of deliberate pilot action, but also much evidence about aircraft systems and other matters.

"A significant amount of pertinent factual information developed during the three-year investigation is either not discussed in the Indonesian report or not fully considered," the U.S. report said.

Silk Air is a regional partner of Singapore Airlines.

Its plane crashed on December 19, 1997, while flying from Jakarta to Singapore, dropping froan altitude of 35,000 feet and suddenly diving into the Musi River near Palembang. Within a few months, suspicion grew the captain had deliberately crashed the jet.

The U.S. report found the captain had engaged in risky trading in securities in Singapore for eight years, running up major losses. He also had significant credit card debts and a large loan with "no known liquid assets" to repay it.

The final Indonesian report said there "was no evidence found to indicate that the performance of either pilot was adversely affected by any medical or psychological conditions."

But the U.S. report argued that only sustained operation of the controls by one of the pilots could have caused the plane to act as it did. The U.S. report said there was no evidence that anything was mechanically wrong with the plane, contradicting Indonesia's statement that the evidence was inconclusive.

An analysis of the flight path strongly suggested manual manipulation of the controls, the Post said, citing the U.S. report. The wreckage showed that engines were set to high power and controls affecting the plane's flight angle were turned to nose-down position.