Probe blames pilots for Adam Air crash: Indonesian officials

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - An investigation into the January 2007 crash of an Indonesian Adam Air plane in which all 102 passengers and crew died has blamed pilot error for the disaster, transport officials said here Tuesday.

The two pilots accidentally disconnected the autopilot while they tried to fix a problem with the plane's navigation instruments, government investigators found.

"Without the autopilot, the plane went out of control, listing to the right and pitching down," investigator Santoso Sayogo was quoted by AFP as telling a press conference Tuesday.

The Boeing 737-400 belonging to the budget carrier, which was barred from flying this month over safety worries, was carrying 96 passengers and six crew when it plunged into the sea on January 1, 2007.

"The accident happened because of a combination of several factors, including the failure of both pilots to intensively monitor flight instruments, especially in the last two minutes of the flight," Indonesia's transport safety chief Tatang Kurniadi said.

The information came from the plane's "black box" flight recorders, which were recovered from the sea last August.

Another investigator said the plane was travelling at 10 times the normal landing speed when it hit the water and would have broken up on impact. No bodies were ever recovered.

Indonesia this month imposed a three-month flying ban on Adam Air after uncovering "violations that could put passengers' safety at risk."

The move followed a series of incidents that raised doubts over the airline's safety record, most recently when an Adam Air Boeing 737-400 with 175 people on board skidded off the runway in foul weather this month.

Last year all Boeing 737-300 aircraft operated by the airline were grounded temporarily after the fuselage of one plane cracked on landing. (*) end