SURABAYA: Hundreds of family members of the victims of AirAsia flight QZ8501 gathered at the East Java Police Headquarters in Surabaya on Monday (Dec 28) to commemorate the first anniversary of the crash.
Ebenhaezar Tanaputra, who lost six family members including his mother-in-law and most of his sister-in-law’s family, was one of many paying his respects. He asked what AirAsia was doing to prevent a similar crash from happening again.
“The National Transportation Safety Committee report indicates that there was negligence by AirAsia. There’s a crack in the Rudder Travel Limiter Unit,” said Ebenhaezar Tanaputra. “Family members are disappointed and angry as we feel we were duped and misled by AirAsia.”
The accident killed all 162 passengers and crew on board, who were en route from Surabaya to Singapore.
“The maintenance errors show their negligence and ignorance,” said Eka Santoso, another family member of an AirAsia crash victim. “They should give us an apology. They shouldn’t just feel sorry for our grief.”
Aviation authorities are considering reinstating AirAsia’s Surabaya to Singapore route, if corrective steps are taken by the airline.
The route was first suspended by Indonesia’s Transportation Ministry suspended in January. The National Transportation Safety Committee has suggested the airline inspect the Rudder Travel Limiter Units on all its Airbus A320 planes, evaluate its technical manual and increase pilot training.
However, AirAsia Indonesia’s CEO said that all the safety actions have already been implemented.
“All those 52 safety actions stated in the report are already implemented in AirAsia,” said Sunu Widiatmoko.
Despite this, it will be a while before AirAsia regains the trust of grieving family members.