On the 1st of January 2007, an airplane of the Indonesian budget airliner Adam Air went missing over the archipelago Sulawesi. Flight 574 with 96 passengers and six crews on board was on its domestic flight from Surabaya to Manado. After a search for more than ten days, a few pieces debris from the crashed airplane, were found at the shores near Makassar in southern Sulawesi on 12 January last. What are the circumstances and background of this air disaster?
Adam Air was founded in 2002 by the well-known Indonesian businessman, Agung Laksono, who is also an influential politician linked to the powerful political party Golkar. Adam Air inaugural flight took place on 19 December 2003 from Jakarta to Medan on Sumatra. Its CEO is Laksono´s own son Adam Adhitya Suherman who was then 22 years old.
The crashed airplane was a Boeing 737-400 with registration code PK-KKW which was 17 years old. The fleet of Adam Air consists of 20 Boeings 737, with an average fleet age of 18.5 year, ranking Adam Air on the third position of the newest aircraft fleet in Indonesia. The national carrier Garuda leads with an average 10-year-old fleet.
Flight 574 left Surabaya at 1 pm local time and was bound for Manado on northeast Sulawesi. It was a normal 2-hours flight. The weather conditions were bad as the area was hit by high winds and severe storms in the past few days. In the last radio contact the captain reported heavy side winds. The contact was then lost one hour before destination at an altitude of 35,000 feet.
The cause of the crash may be found in the severe weather conditions. The first question that arises is why Adam Air flight operation did not cancel the flight but rather allowed it to take off? Two days prior to the crash a ferry with 600 people on board sank on its way from Kalimantan on Borneo to Java Island. Experts believe the same storm might well have been the cause of the crash of this aircraft.
So, why did the pilot not divert the flight, as he could see on the weather radar that the plane was going to fly into the extremely bad weather? An anonymous pilot reported from the Professional Pilots Rumour Network website that all 737-200s of Adam Air are not equipped with such weather radar. Thus, pilots have to rely on weather satellite pictures of Indonesia. The PK-KKW plane was, however, a 737-400 which was believed to have weather radar on board. Was the weather radar already inoperative before departure?
The ´Tambolaka Incident´ may shed more light on this matter. In early February 2006 an Adam Air Boeing 737-300 flying on the route Jakarta-Makassar went off course and was eventually found back on the airstrip of Tambolaka on Sumba Island. The plane was then 2,000 km off its final destination.
Adam Air explained that ´due to bad weather the pilot was forced to make an emergency landing on Tambolaka`. Three days later, however, the Indonesian ministery of transport announced that ‘Adam Air had committed a serious violation by operating a plane which flight navigation system still needs to produce evidence of repaired.’ So was the plane wandering in the sky for more than two hours without proper navigation before it touched down at Tambolaka?
The way Adam Air´s senior management handles safety is questionable. According to the pilots´ rumours website, the cabin crews are poorly trained while a substantial number of flight operation officers lack necessary experience or proper qualifications. There are cases where pilots who protest to the management on its way of handling aircraft safety are sacked and sued by the airline for professional negligence.
An example on the operational safety with Adam Air: the priority is set on cargo. In order to maximise cargo revenue, it happens that the aircraft is sometimes over its maximum zero fuel weight. The captain, not wanting to enter into a delay, decides to reduce weight by burning off fuel before take off.
As long as the wreck of flight 574 is fully recovered, the question of what might have caused the crash cannot be answered. Given the way Adam Air runs airline business, investigators may not have to beat around the bush. Ervina Liauw, 28, an accountant from Jakarta, when asked on her experience with flying with Adam Air: ´I dare not flying with Adam Air as I heard a lot of scary stories about it. A friend once took a flight from here to Semarang. She was shocked when she saw how old the aircraft looked like, and she was scared to death when the plane smashed hard onto the runaway.´
Yee Chuen Leung
Chief Editor
Adam Air was founded in 2002 by the well-known Indonesian businessman, Agung Laksono, who is also an influential politician linked to the powerful political party Golkar. Adam Air inaugural flight took place on 19 December 2003 from Jakarta to Medan on Sumatra. Its CEO is Laksono´s own son Adam Adhitya Suherman who was then 22 years old.
The crashed airplane was a Boeing 737-400 with registration code PK-KKW which was 17 years old. The fleet of Adam Air consists of 20 Boeings 737, with an average fleet age of 18.5 year, ranking Adam Air on the third position of the newest aircraft fleet in Indonesia. The national carrier Garuda leads with an average 10-year-old fleet.
Flight 574 left Surabaya at 1 pm local time and was bound for Manado on northeast Sulawesi. It was a normal 2-hours flight. The weather conditions were bad as the area was hit by high winds and severe storms in the past few days. In the last radio contact the captain reported heavy side winds. The contact was then lost one hour before destination at an altitude of 35,000 feet.
The cause of the crash may be found in the severe weather conditions. The first question that arises is why Adam Air flight operation did not cancel the flight but rather allowed it to take off? Two days prior to the crash a ferry with 600 people on board sank on its way from Kalimantan on Borneo to Java Island. Experts believe the same storm might well have been the cause of the crash of this aircraft.
So, why did the pilot not divert the flight, as he could see on the weather radar that the plane was going to fly into the extremely bad weather? An anonymous pilot reported from the Professional Pilots Rumour Network website that all 737-200s of Adam Air are not equipped with such weather radar. Thus, pilots have to rely on weather satellite pictures of Indonesia. The PK-KKW plane was, however, a 737-400 which was believed to have weather radar on board. Was the weather radar already inoperative before departure?
The ´Tambolaka Incident´ may shed more light on this matter. In early February 2006 an Adam Air Boeing 737-300 flying on the route Jakarta-Makassar went off course and was eventually found back on the airstrip of Tambolaka on Sumba Island. The plane was then 2,000 km off its final destination.
Adam Air explained that ´due to bad weather the pilot was forced to make an emergency landing on Tambolaka`. Three days later, however, the Indonesian ministery of transport announced that ‘Adam Air had committed a serious violation by operating a plane which flight navigation system still needs to produce evidence of repaired.’ So was the plane wandering in the sky for more than two hours without proper navigation before it touched down at Tambolaka?
The way Adam Air´s senior management handles safety is questionable. According to the pilots´ rumours website, the cabin crews are poorly trained while a substantial number of flight operation officers lack necessary experience or proper qualifications. There are cases where pilots who protest to the management on its way of handling aircraft safety are sacked and sued by the airline for professional negligence.
An example on the operational safety with Adam Air: the priority is set on cargo. In order to maximise cargo revenue, it happens that the aircraft is sometimes over its maximum zero fuel weight. The captain, not wanting to enter into a delay, decides to reduce weight by burning off fuel before take off.
As long as the wreck of flight 574 is fully recovered, the question of what might have caused the crash cannot be answered. Given the way Adam Air runs airline business, investigators may not have to beat around the bush. Ervina Liauw, 28, an accountant from Jakarta, when asked on her experience with flying with Adam Air: ´I dare not flying with Adam Air as I heard a lot of scary stories about it. A friend once took a flight from here to Semarang. She was shocked when she saw how old the aircraft looked like, and she was scared to death when the plane smashed hard onto the runaway.´
Yee Chuen Leung
Chief Editor
