JAKARTA (INDONESIA) – Indonesia’s air accident investigator will brief relatives of the 62 victims of Sriwijaya Air crash, which happened last month in Jakarta on Wednesday morning before the release of a preliminary report in the afternoon, a family member told.
The briefing will be followed by one held for families on Tuesday in Pontianak, which was the destination of doomed flight. This comes in the wake of divers’ hunt for the missing memory unit from the plane’s cockpit voice recorder.
Rafik Alaydrus, whose wife died in the crash, said investigators on Tuesday told family members that the cause is yet to be determined, however, that various aspects such as the plane’s autothrottle system were being looked into.
“For family of victims, we do not understand about technical issues,” he said. “We responded this incident had happened and the victims should get their right compensation.”
Investigators quickly traced the location and read the plane’s flight data recorder (FDR) and also sent parts of the plane, including the autothrottle system in control of engine power automatically, to the United States and Britain for examination.
The Wall Street Journal citing sources last month reported the FDR data showed that the autothrottle system was not functioning properly on one of the plane’s engines as it left Jakarta.
The FDR indicated that instead of switching off the system, the pilots tried to get the throttle, which had got stuck, to function, the WSJ said. That might lead to significant differences in power between engines, leaving the jet in such a position that it is harder to control.
According to safety experts, most air accidents happen because of a combination of factors, which can take months to establish itself. Under international standards, the final report is likely to happen within a year of the crash.