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Tower chat shows calm before Java crash - media

14 Mar 2007 00:44:25 GMT
Source: Reuters

CANBERRA, March 14 (Reuters) - Transcripts of control tower conversations with the pilots of a crashed Indonesian passenger jet showed no adverse conditions as it prepared to land, Australian newspapers reported on Wednesday.

Twenty-one people including five Australians were killed last week when Garuda Indonesia flight GA200 overshot the runway and burst into flames at Yogyakarta airport in central Java.

"GIA 200. Wind calm. Check gear down and lock. Clear to land," the tower official told the crew, according to the Sydney Daily Telegraph newspaper.

"Clear to land GIA 200," the cockpit crew replied. One minute later the aircraft slammed hard into the bumpy Yogyakarta runway.

Just four minutes before the crash an Indonesian military flight to Jakarta was given clearance for takeoff by the tower, which again reported "wind calm", the transcript said.

The tower transcripts were carried in several Australian newspapers.

The cockpit voice recorder from the aircraft has been sent to the United States after Australian experts failed to retrieve crucial information.

But Australian investigators said they had extracted crucial information from the plane's flight data recorder, including the speed of the plane, its vertical acceleration, flap settings and wind speed.

The five Australians killed in the crash -- two Australian Federal Police agents, a journalist and two Jakarta embassy employees -- were on the plane to help with a visit by Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer to Yogyakarta later that day.

Their bodies were returned to Canberra on Wednesday in a military C-130. ((Reporting by Rob Taylor, editing by Jeremy Laurence, james.grubel@reuters.com; Reuters Messaging: james.grubel.reuters.com@reuters.net, +612 6273 2730))

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Last updated:Wed Mar 14 00:44:38 2007