Garuda crash update – aircraft landing too fast may be cause.

The pilot of the Garuda Indonesia aircraft coming in to land yesterday, overshooting the runway and bursting into flames yesterday at Yogyakarta, Indonesia may have been travelling too fast from eye witness and passenger reports.

It is feared that 5 Australians, who remain unaccounted for and 18 Indonesians have died in what appears to be a terrible accident, not terrorism, when the Garuda Indoenesia Boeing 737 crashed and exploded into a fireball.

Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, who arrived in Yogyakarta yesterday, said, “The plane came hurtling into the runway at a much greater speed than an aeroplane would normally land at”

It is highly unlikely that anyone that remained in the aircraft survived the inferno that engulfed the front of the plane, with Mr Downer telling the ABC that he spoke with two RAAF officers who survived the crash, adding, “They thought the plane would never stop in the length of the runway and it duly didn’t, it just ploughed across the end of the runway, across a road, hit a bank and a culvert and went into a paddy field.”  “When it hit the bank and culvert it exploded.”

Yogyakarta airport, about 440 kilometres or a one hour flight from Jakarta, is known for its relatively short runway.

The missing Australians are:

Australian Jakarta embassy spokeswoman, Liz O’Neill;

The Australian Financial Review correspondent, Morgan Mellish;

AusAID Jakarta official, Allison Sudrajat;

Australian Federal Police officer based in Indonesia, Brice Steele; and

Australian Federal Police officer based in Indonesia Mark Scott.

All were travelling related to Mr Downer’s visit to Yogyakarta yesterday.

Sydney Morning Herald’s Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Cynthia Banham, was reportedly pulled from the wreckage with 60% burns and severe back injuries and has been transferred to hospital in Perth.

“I thought I was going to die,” she said from her hospital bed. “I saw them burning alive, I should be dead.”

She told her partner, the Herald Sun reporter Michael Harvey, she survived by dragging herself from the blazing plane and rolling in a pool of water to extinguish her burning clothes.  Banham had been sitting next to some of the missing Australians.

Three other Australians were injured, one with serious burns.

Two air force security officers who were sitting further back in the plane said they knew it was descending alarmingly quickly.

Kyle Quinlan, 23 an Aircraftsman, who injured his shoulder, said his colleague, Michael Hatton, shouted out: “We’re coming in too fast”, with the plane bouncing as it hit the tarmac, speeding past the end of the runway, through a fence, across a road and 200 metres into a paddy field where it burst into flames.

He added, “The right side was on fire outside and someone got the exit door open but then the door inside was on fire.”  “There was a crush of passengers and everything in front of row 10, the exit row, crumpled.”  “I’m surprised anyone got out of there.”

Another survivor, Dien Syamsudin, a local Islamic leader who was travelling to Yogyakarta to meet Mr Downer, said, “I saw a foreigner, his clothes were on fire and I jumped from the emergency exit.”  “Thank God I survived.”

He added, “Some passengers wanted to get their hand luggage.”  “I cried to them, ‘Get out, get out’”.  “The plane was full of smoke.”  “I just jumped from two metres high and landed in a rice field.”

World Vision worker, Meigi Panggabean, said, “As we approached the ground and I could see roofs from our window, the plane was swaying and shaking, then the plane was slammed to the ground and skidded forward and slammed once again before it come to a stop.”

She said passengers had been warned the flight would be turbulent and most reacted calmly, with dozens leaping from emergency exits into surrounding rice-paddies to escape the inferno which reduced the plane to a smouldering wreck.

A witness to the crash, First Air Marshal Benyamin Dandel, the Indonesian Air Force commander at Yogyakarta, told a news website: “The plane was too fast or overspeeding, so it ran about 300 metres off the runway.”

Witnesses said there were inadequate resources to deal with the accident, and the fire hose being used in an attempt to douse the flames burst.

Passenger, Professor Murni Hilal, said she felt something was wrong just before landing, adding, “The plane simply didn’t fly properly, “ saying that at one point she heard an explosion, adding, “Suddenly the situation was out of control,” “People panicked when we saw fire and I just heard a steward shout ‘Quick! Quick!’ “Things were just chaotic; everyone was just helping themselves.”  “I saw people trying to get out the back door so I followed them.”

Indonesia’s Transport Minister, Hatta Radjasa, said that he had been told the aircraft touched down a third of the way along the runway, without enough room to stop.

A Channel Seven cameraman, Wayan Sukardo, knew the plane was coming in too fast, saying “I see a fire in back, back of the flight, and many people on the flight crying”. “Many people panic to get the emergency door, emergency window,” said Mr Sukardo, who despite a broken leg managed to haul himself from the aircraft and film the tragedy.

Some survivors thought they saw sparks fly from the engines, others reported hearing explosions.

Witnesses on the ground reported the front wheel collapsed before the plane skidded in flames across the runway and that the nose of the plane, including the cockpit and the first 10 rows of passenger seats, was torn from the fuselage, with in darkness and smoke passengers struggling to escape.

A Report by The Mole